4 ms·

I have a few photographs, (may be most people have too,) of a few plants/fungi and animals/insects I couldn't identify, even after consulting resources like Wik

I have a few photographs, (may be most people have too,) of a few plants/fungi and animals/insects I couldn't identify, even after consulting resources like Wikipedia. What is the best way to get a species identification from a photograph.

azeirah 6y ago
Not sure what they're called, but there are subreddits for identifying bugs and plants and stuff
- mkr-hn 6y ago
  Google (or quack) /r/whatisthis and the thing you want to identify. There's a bunch of subreddits like this. Here's a big list: https://www.reddit.com/r/Whatisthis/wiki/links https://www.reddit.com/r/Whatisthis/wiki/links
  - JoBrad 6y ago
    This is one of my favorite subreddits. I don’t think I’ve ever even posted in it. It’s like real life Sherlock Holmes sometimes. Quite often people will post a piece of a car involved in a hit and run, and it will be solved in minutes. Or someone will post the oddest looking item, and not only will it get solved, but you’ll learn a bit of background that you never knew.
saadalem 6y ago
r/whatsthisbug/
carlinmack 6y ago
iNaturalist, their license allows your pictures/data to be used in academic research
MattBlissett 6y ago
As azeirah writes, subreddits or Facebook groups for people interested in the particular group or location will often help. For general wild plants and animals (and fungi and everything else) there's a computer vision tool from iNaturalist, which can be used independently [1], or when submitting an observation to the site -- by web browser or in the app. I usually start with that, then look at other observations on iNaturalist and Wikipedia pages for the species. If the photos are of ornamental plants, I think PlantNet's [2] model is trained on them. (I work at GBIF[3], where suitable data from iNaturalist[3b] and soon PlantNet is sent, and can then be freely downloaded and used in research etc.) [1] https://www.inaturalist.org/computer_vision_demo https://www.inaturalist.org/computer_vision_demo [2] https://plantnet.org/ https://plantnet.org/ [3] https://www.gbif.org/ https://www.gbif.org/ [3b] https://www.gbif.org/dataset/50c9509d-22c7-4a22-a47d-8c48425ef4a7 https://www.gbif.org/dataset/50c9509d-22c7-4a22-a47d-8c48425...
neurostimulant 6y ago
You can post them to various relevant subreddits (/r/whatsthisbug, /r/mycology, etc). Identification requests are very common and people are receiving them well, so you'll likely to get some answers.
reportingsjr 6y ago
Inaturalist is a great starting point! What's really funny is I identified a few millipedes on iNaturalist a couple weeks ago and the Twitter poster in this article (Derek Hennen) came along and narrowed it down for me. Very kind and knowledgeable person!

azeirah 6y ago

Not sure what they're called, but there are subreddits for identifying bugs and plants and stuff

mkr-hn 6y ago
Google (or quack) /r/whatisthis and the thing you want to identify. There's a bunch of subreddits like this. Here's a big list: https://www.reddit.com/r/Whatisthis/wiki/links https://www.reddit.com/r/Whatisthis/wiki/links
- JoBrad 6y ago
  This is one of my favorite subreddits. I don’t think I’ve ever even posted in it. It’s like real life Sherlock Holmes sometimes. Quite often people will post a piece of a car involved in a hit and run, and it will be solved in minutes. Or someone will post the oddest looking item, and not only will it get solved, but you’ll learn a bit of background that you never knew.

saadalem 6y ago

r/whatsthisbug/

carlinmack 6y ago

iNaturalist, their license allows your pictures/data to be used in academic research

MattBlissett 6y ago

As azeirah writes, subreddits or Facebook groups for people interested in the particular group or location will often help. For general wild plants and animals (and fungi and everything else) there's a computer vision tool from iNaturalist, which can be used independently [1], or when submitting an observation to the site -- by web browser or in the app. I usually start with that, then look at other observations on iNaturalist and Wikipedia pages for the species. If the photos are of ornamental plants, I think PlantNet's [2] model is trained on them. (I work at GBIF[3], where suitable data from iNaturalist[3b] and soon PlantNet is sent, and can then be freely downloaded and used in research etc.) [1] https://www.inaturalist.org/computer_vision_demo https://www.inaturalist.org/computer_vision_demo [2] https://plantnet.org/ https://plantnet.org/ [3] https://www.gbif.org/ https://www.gbif.org/ [3b] https://www.gbif.org/dataset/50c9509d-22c7-4a22-a47d-8c48425ef4a7 https://www.gbif.org/dataset/50c9509d-22c7-4a22-a47d-8c48425...

neurostimulant 6y ago

You can post them to various relevant subreddits (/r/whatsthisbug, /r/mycology, etc). Identification requests are very common and people are receiving them well, so you'll likely to get some answers.

reportingsjr 6y ago

Inaturalist is a great starting point! What's really funny is I identified a few millipedes on iNaturalist a couple weeks ago and the Twitter poster in this article (Derek Hennen) came along and narrowed it down for me. Very kind and knowledgeable person!