הצטרפ.ה ב:ינו' 11, 2022 פעילות אחרונה: יוני 06, 2023 iNaturalist
Hello and welcome to my profile! While I am primarily interested in marine biology, though also trying to start dabbling in entomology, 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 usually 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, identify something, or 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, mollusks, 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.
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 long 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.
P.S.: During my initial arrival I thoughtlessly echoed a lot of expert IDs without any thought put into it. Mea culpa, I am trying to fix my mistakes. I am slowly but surely removing old IDs that I am not sure about (which is just about everything from the Atlantic, for example) but it is taking a while. In the meantime, if you see any precise IDs in the Atlantic I've made know that I either pulled it out of my ass if it's particularly old or, if it's fresh, am echoing expert IDs to narrow down the community taxon after which I will remove those.