Identifier Profile: @davidrabehevitra

This is the twenty-second entry in an ongoing monthly (or almost monthly!) series profiling the amazing identifiers of iNaturalist.

The island of Madagascar is currently home to over 167k verifiable observations of over 10k species on iNaturalist, and David Rabehevitra (@davidrabehevitra) has added identifications to nearly 25k of them, making him the top identifier for this famously biodiverse place. 

Born and raised in Madagascar, David is currently studying the distribution of Tahina spectabilis, a Critically Endangered palm species, and became interested in nature from “being a scout and drawer/photographer from a young age.”

I loved traveling and living in the open air since I was a child, and loved growing things in my little garden. Since then my dream was to have a job that allows me to travel and discover as many places as possible in Madagascar, and around the world later on. When I got my bachelor degree I needed to decide which subject to study when entering university. I chose natural sciences first because it would at least get me close de nature, I then chose to study botany because I felt it would fulfill my dreams of traveling at least around Madagascar.

David joined RBG Kew Madagascar in 2016, where he first found out about iNat, and was later appointed as admin of the Zavamaniry Gasy (Plants of Madagascar) project. He tries to identify Madagascar plant observations on a daily basis.

I add identifications and comments on other users' observations for the pleasure of helping first: helping the platform to improve, helping and guiding others to go further in their research, helping the knowledge of Madagascar's flora and its conservation. I get the reward of a greater knowledge and capacity to recognize taxa from all over Madagascar!

I look at newly added observations, within which I scroll through all the available ones. Then I process from the most finely identified observations (species level) to the least (kingdom). I use The Flora of Madagascar, JSTOR, Plants of the World Online, the Tropicos Madagascar Project and my own database as resources when identifying.

In addition to sharpening his plant identification skills, David uses iNaturalist to gather distribution information for IUCN redlisting. 

The process of establishing The Red List of the Trees of Madagascar, in which I actively participated, used available data, including research grade observations from iNaturalist/Zavamaniry Gasy Project to realise the jump from 379 assessments in 2017 to the 3,000 plus assessments in 2021. I contributed to the identification of a relatively high number of observations to make them Research Grade and therefore usable in the IUCN process. I presented the evidence of this contribution of iNaturalist during a talk in the Madagascar ATBC session in 2019.

(Some quotes have been lightly edited for clarity.)

- when making observations of plants, David recommends taking “high visibility photographs and as much as needed! It requires the identifier to be in the shoes of the observer to make the identification as accurate as possible.” So try to get photos of leaves, flowers, and fruit, often from a few angles, as well as a wider shot showing the plant in full if possible.

- take a look at the most-faved plant observations in Madagascar!

- an observation of a rare Euphorbia plant in Madagascar by @fabienrahaingo, and identified by David, was iNaturalist’s Observation of the Week back in 2017!

Posted on February 4, 2024 08:36 PM by tiwane