Welcome! A Quick Guide to Identification

Hi everyone! Welcome to the 2020 Brandeis Bioliteracy Project! This project will document any and all observations of wildlife found on and around the Brandeis campus during the spring semester. This is Isaiah, the curator of the project and a TA for Conservation Biology. As the semester starts up, many of you will be using iNaturalist for the first time. As such, you may have some initial difficulty with identifying the species that you document. Do not worry! It will take time and practice to recognize the plants, animals and/or fungi that you see. While iNaturalist has a built in identification feature, it is not always accurate. At times, it can be completely off, suggesting plant species when you photographed a bird. As such, do not rely on it entirely and take its suggestions with a grain of salt. Below is a short guide of tools and resources that you can use to help you identify the species in the observations that you make.

First and foremost, a great resource to consult is last year's project. The 2019 Brandeis Bioliteracy Project is a complete list of all observations made last spring. If you go to the species tab, you can see a breakdown of the most commonly found species. Using search, you can break it down into categories like birds, plants, mammals, etc. With lots of high quality observation photos, this is a great place to look if you are unsure of a species' identification.

For plant identification, Go Botany is a really helpful website. They have a breakdown guide where you can enter some basic characteristics and it will give you a list of potential candidates. By answering more questions in the sidebar, you can narrow it down further.

For identifying birds, the Mass Audubon Society has some great resources on the common bird species of Massachusetts. The site also breaks it down by fall/winter and spring/summer birds. In general, they also have some great resources on other forms of wildlife like mammals, reptiles & amphibians, insects & arachnids, and more.

Cornell's Lab of Ornithology also has some great birding resources. They created an app called Merlin that is available on Android and iOS that is a fantastic resource for bird identification. You can enter some basic characteristics and location of sighting and it will give you some suggestions with great accuracy. Their website also has some high quality photos you can browse if you have some idea of what you are looking at.

For insect identification, Brandeis' own Even Dankowicz (@edanko) has created an amazing comprehensive guide. It covers a lot of different groups and families, but his section on flies (Diptera) is the most detailed.

The library also has some great naturalist guides that can be checked out. I am a big fan of Roger Peterson's field guides, but there are a lot that all focus on different groups of species (trees, birds, butterflies, etc.). They have full color illustrations and detailed notes on descriptions as well as similarities and differences from other species.

Finally, if you have any questions on iNaturalist, the project, an identification, or just want to say hi, you can reach out to me at ifreedman@brandeis.edu. I would be happy to talk or answer any questions that you have. I look forward to seeing all of your observations over the course of the semester!

Publicado el viernes, 24 de enero de 2020 a las 08:18 PM por ifreedman ifreedman

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