Hello and welcome to my profile! While I am primarily interested in marine biology I find myself fascinated by just about everything way too often. This, combined with the fact I live pretty far inland, is the main reason why despite having zero knowledge of botany most of my observations are of plants. Having said that, I try to identify observations made by others rather than making new ones. I also often filter observations from oldest to newest trying to minimalize the amount that still needs IDs. On a side note, I am perfectly fine with both being messaged and @ under observations if for any reason you wish to ask me something, to identify something or to explain the thought process behind my IDs.

If one of your observations has an ID from me it is either:

1) Somehow connected to aquatic fauna. For the most part I consider myself trustworthy when it comes to most reef fish from the Red Sea, although I'm not terrible with other areas of the Indo-Pacific either. I also quite often identify crustaceans, molluscs or anemones from these regions, in which case my identifications should be taken with a grain of salt. When it comes to most cnidarians and sponges, I am still very much learning so please excuse any possible mistakes I may make. The same applies to any rare freshwater identifications I may make.

2) Placed in the 'Unknown' category. Nowadays I try to search through observations categorized as 'Unknown' in order to give them some basic identifications so that actual experts can come across them more easily. And if you're new and reading this: please give your observations some sort of ID, even as imprecise as Animalia, Plantae or anything in between. Seriously, it will help you get an ID on them. As an extension of this, I also quite often search by animal observations above Class and try to narrow the community taxon as much as I can so that experts can come across these observations more easily.

And this should go without saying but I am just a human and I make mistakes. Please never assume I am correct just because I gave you an ID. Compare and come to your own conclusions because trusting me blindly for any reason is a terrible idea. ALSO! Trying my best to learn from past mistakes so if you believe any of my IDs are wrong please spare a moment of your time to explain to me why, I'd greatly appreciate it!

For a longer while I've been pouring my heart and soul into the Red Sea region on iNaturalist - primarily by identifying various observations but also by expanding the region's lifelist. As such, I'd like to just thank everyone who posts observations in the region - seriously, I'm afraid you may have no idea how much joy it brings me to see them. Before iNat I never thought I'd be this joyous when I see someone upload photos of fish on the Internet.