Proof of ability to Identify to genus/tribe/subfamily level
The basic question is. how many can really ID to Subfamily, Tribe, genus level without Pic's on the Nett.
Now I do not profess to know all taxa, but I have a general understanding of the Cerambycidae .
So lets rather, for the sake of this journal post rather keep the discussion to this family.
I note that there are 1619 Identifiers (world wide) on Cerambycidae (current count). Which implies that there are at-least the same amount of people that know the difference between the sub-families, tribes, and genera. (Genera at-least on a regional scale).
I actually wonder how many of the 1500 odd people can give the definition of the sub-families. And further how many can give the differences between the tribes (of the sub-families) or just for interest sake.... give the characteristics of the genera within one Tribe (in there own regional).
Ag, just rambling ...........
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Pictures on the net makes identification so much easier. This should be seen as one of the big benefits of iNaturalist, because of it we have pictures available of a ton more species.
I have been making a hobby of trying to find never photographed aphids these last few months. Sometimes the photos just make it clear how many look-alike species there are. Often though there are no species on that host which are similar. Then the second person to identify then has a much easier time.
Here is my latest example, not sure I could have conclusively identified the first without a microscope, but the second wouldn’t be difficult:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/9665581
@glmory, firstly a fantastic observation.
The information given in your observation as indicated is the crux of my problem. I feel that (myself included) at least within the Southern African community are failing to give reasons why we give an ID.
So thank you, I think your observation is inspiring
Persons who have no collection depend on literature, i.e. books, articles or websites. In websites you can normally compare only the habitus and design elements. In books, however, which most people do not possess, or articles, which are often not accessible to most persons, one can also find explanations on the difference of Genera and species. I presume, that most participants in iNat can only compare pictures on websites.
I will try to give more citations of where I found the species and - if possible- where the differences to related species can be found.
Wolf
Wolf, firstly thanks for posting an answer. as someone (Hanna included) that Riana and I really respect this means more than you could ever imagine. The crux of the matter is if we are going to make this site our home we need to get back to reasoning, otherwise it is just a pretty picture site ( my opinion any way).
Best regards To your self and Hanna, understand you are in the middle of winter... ouch
A small number of good identifiers can go a really long ways towards fixing issues like that. Once you have the hotkeys memorized, the identify tool lets you go through observations in a hurry and clean them up. One person identifying tens of thousands of observations, even in complex groups like bees, snails or beetles is a relatively common thing on here.
Of course, it is also easy to find out the hard way you actually don't understand the species you are trying to identify.
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