4 ms·
When I occasionally want to identify a spider I see I find it a bit sad that you can find lots of pages with information on spiders that people are afraid of bu
by resoluteteeth 4y ago
When I occasionally want to identify a spider I see I find it a bit sad that you can find lots of pages with information on spiders that people are afraid of but not much information on random spiders unless they're something particularly interesting like orb weavers
I'm not sure if there are just too many species or if just nobody cares?
- VTimofeenko 4y agoWell we as a species are probably more interested in whether it's really a tiger in the bushes that's out to get us and not in that tiger's family tree.
- filoeleven 4y agoThere are some variously-imperfect methods to ID things that you can take photos of. The Seek app by iNaturalist has pretty decent AI to identify plants and animals. It can limit itself to broader IDs such as “wasp family” if it doesn’t find enough characteristics. It can also be wildly off sometimes in its specific IDs because it’s image recognition. There are also loads of dedicated Facebook groups specifically for ID. I know that some of the plant and mushroom ones are very good, I suspect spider-focused groups are similarly enthusiastic. They can also be wildly off, with the added component of traded insults between different people who are all certain they are each correct, and the others are all idiots “who wouldn’t know a recluse from a redback even after they got bit.” This could be a pro or a con, depending on what you find entertaining. State extensions are going to be the most reliable, and will likely have the most info on the obscure local wildlife. I don’t know how willing they are to ID from photos though; it may vary from place to place. They may want you to capture one and send it in.