iNat Intro: iNat Discoveries

This is meant to be a resource to introduce my students to the site and to supplement an "Intro to iNat" program I'm giving. If you're already an active iNat user, you probably don't need this (but if you're planning to do a program of your own or are trying to brainwash friends and neighbors, feel free to link people here).

One goal of iNaturalist ( https://www.inaturalist.org/home ) is to encourage people to go outside and connect with nature.

I was a nature nerd before iNaturalist was invented. Can iNat really help me discover new things? Well...

My iNat Discoveries:
These are things I discovered because:
1) I found something cool and used iNat to help me find out more.
2) Browsing iNat observations alerted me to cool things that I, too, might find.

What I now know because of iNat: the short list

There are sand monsters in my flowerbed.
Wasps parasitize EVERYTHING. From bug eggs to fly larvae to aphids.
Some fungi are picky eaters. This one only eats fallen juniper twiglets, while this one only likes ladybug shells.
Some bees make cotton balls.
Even duckweeds have leaf miners.
Not all ladybugs are red. There are also white ones and black ones and yellow ones.
Bees stick out their tongues. There's even an iNat project devoted to this: Bees concentrating nectar.
Some caterpillars aren't. Only one eye? It's a sawfly.
Some wasps aren't, either. Wasps have two pairs of wings. Flies have one.
No lichen is safe from a botanist with a base.

由使用者 m_whitson 在 2024年08月03日 16:31 所貼文