Identifier Profile: @susanhewitt

This is the twelfth in an ongoing monthly (or almost monthly!) series profiling the amazing identifiers of iNaturalist. 

“Seashells have amazing shapes and colors,” says Susan Hewitt (@susanhewitt). “It is an exaggeration, but I say that all of the mysteries of the universe are embodied in the spiral designs of seashells, so with enough study and meditation, you could understand everything!”

Born and raised in Kent, England, Susan says she fell in love with seashells and land-snail shells during her family’s yearly summer trips to North Devon. “I think my mother put up with boxes of shells in my room, because they were not too heavy, they were not dirty, and the contents would not escape and run around the house.”

She and her family often visited Charles Darwin’s house, which was a few miles away.

As a little kid I did not understand why Darwin was so important, but when I got old enough to read about his discoveries, I was delighted. The theory of evolution by natural selection unlocked all of biology and nature in the same way that atomic structure and the periodic table of the elements unlocked chemistry.

And in elementary school, each classroom had a “nature table”, where students could leave natural objects they found. 

When people ask me, I explain that I did not “become” interested in nature at some point, instead I was born interested in nature. As soon as I was big enough to walk by myself, I would go out and pick up anything natural that caught my eye and bring it home — rocks, pine cones, wildflowers, bugs — it was all great to me. William Healey Dall, who was a superb 19th century malacologist, said, “Naturalists are born not made” and I agree with him.

While living in Southern California in her early twenties, Susan’s interest in seashells became more serious, and she wrote some small papers about them. And in her thirties she says “I was super fortunate that I got to become friends with the late E.O. Wilson when I worked for two years at Harvard in the Museum of Comparative Zoology.” She’s now written 58 papers, which can be found on ResearchGate and on Wikipedia.

She first heard about iNat in 2014, when she led a mollusk search during a bioblitz at the New York Botanical Garden.  “I am interested in all mollusks of every kind, from every kind of habitat,” says Susan, “and when I first joined iNaturalist in 2014, I spent almost all of my time looking at mollusk observations and ID-ing as many of them as I could.” In the past eight years or so she’s since added IDs to about 120,000 verifiable observations, and is one of the top identifiers of mollusk observations on iNat!

I love to help people whenever I can by putting IDs on their observations because what is the point of amassing valuable knowledge if you don’t share it with others? I am in my 70s, and I think that is my job now, to help teach other people what I have learned.

Not only does Susan add IDs, she often includes helpful and encouraging comments along with those identifications and has written a detailed guide to observing mollusks on her iNat profile, which I definitely encourage everyone to check out. Here are some basic tips:

With snail shells try to get three views including a view looking directly at the aperture. With bivalves, please photograph the inside as well as the outside. Often we need a scale object to be included so we know how big the shell is.

When choosing a dead empty shell to photograph, if possible try to make sure the shell is in good condition: not broken, not chipped, and not too bleached-out by the sun.

Susan’s observation count is almost on par with her identification count, and she makes observations pretty much every day, whether in her current home city of New York or her annual trips to Florida, the Caribbean and Southern California. 

I use iNat on a daily basis and try to record all of wild nature that I come across. iNat has helped me learn so much more about every aspect of nature, and I have met and become friends with many really great local naturalists through iNat too.

I make daily observations using the app on my iPhone. I put at least a rough ID on while I am coming back from being out, or once I get home. Then I upload all my obs and the next morning I go though all the obs again, often trying to improve the IDs. I do have quite a lot of field guides, but I have to say I mostly use the resources on iNat itself.  And also I google to help me find out more about some species.

(The photos of Susan are by Sylvia van Leeuwen, and were taken during a Dutch marine biology expedition to the Caribbean island of Sint Eustatius in 2015.)

- Susan is also an active Wikipedia contributor and a few years ago they featured her in a video about the Love dart article she co-wrote. 

- An Associated Press article about iNat from 2018 included an interview with Susan.

- Check out a recent paper about using iNat as a tool for studying mollusks in Brazil. 

- You can also beach comb for sea beans, as a recent Observation of the Week post detailed.

Posted on July 28, 2022 10:17 PM by tiwane