Happy 2016 everybody! To mark the New Year, we're rolling out a new weekly schedule of featured organisms that we're calling the Critter Calendar.

Inspired by National Moth Week, each week for the duration of 2016 we will announce a featured critter along with a little blurb to help you recognize them and know where to look. We will tally all of the observations made of the critter during the week in a project, and at the end of the week, we will recap what was found and highlight any interesting findings.

We've picked widely distributed, frequently observed groups and have arranged them based on the timing of past iNaturalist observations. So hopefully as many participants from around the globe as possible will be able to find these critters near their backyards.

This first week running from Sunday January 3rd through Jaunary 9th we are featuring cormorants and their relatives!

Critter Calendar Weeks

Critter Calendar weeks so far:

• Cormorant Week: Jan 3-9
• Woodpecker Week: Jan 10-16
• Hawk Week: Jan 17-23
• Duck Week: Jan 24-30
• Heron Week: Jan 31 - Feb 6
• Cactus Week: Feb 7-13
• Fish Week: Feb 14-20
• Salamander Week: Feb 21-27
• Hummingbird Week: Feb 28-Mar 5
• Rodent Week: Mar 6-Mar 12
• Moss Week: Mar 13-Mar 20
• Borage Week: Mar 20-Mar 26
• Carrot Week: Mar 27-Apr 2
• Legume Frog Week: Apr 3-Apr 9
• Tree Frog Week: Apr 10-Apr 16
• Lizard Week: Apr 17-Apr 23
• Mustard Week: Apr 24-Apr 30
• Buttercup Week: May 1-May 7
• Asparagus Week: May 8-May 14

This Periclimenes sagittifer shrimp seen by scubale in Italy is our Observation of the Week!

Alessandra (aka scubale), is a photographer and divemaster in Italy who discovered SCUBA diving in 2007, and her eyes were opened. “Before that,” she says, “I could not imagine how many amazing creatures inhabit the sea.” Although she loves all of nature, it is to the sea which she feels she “deeply belongs,” and always carries a camera with her when she can, to show others “how many wonders can be observed in nature.” Not content with just observing and exploring nature, Alessandra helps protect it by biking or taking transit, collecting waste and trash when diving or at the beach, and does her best to avoid products which are harmful to the environment. 

One of her favorite places to dive is off of Italy’s Tremiti Islands. “The wealth of fish species and plants of the marine park, the striking shape of the seabed make the underwater panorama of rare beauty, making it ideal for scuba diving,” she says, and it was off of Capraia, one of the five islands of the archipelago, where she found the Periclimenes sagittifer shrimp pictured above. Alessandra “remembers perfectly” looking for shrimp within the undulating tentacles of an anemone when “my eyes moved sideways. This allowed me to notice it while it was moving out of the anemone, walking on the rock.”

The Periclimenes sagittifer shrimp is one of many species in the Periclimenes genus, members of whom live symbiotically with other sea creatures. Some are known to live with sea cucumbers, corals, and even nudibranchs, but the majority live within sea anemones, making them difficult to find. Cool fact - while it’s impossible to know why this shrimp was off its host, P. sagittifer and other anemone-hosted shrimp must leave their anemones each time they molt, as they’ll temporarily lose their mucus-based protection from the anemone’s stinging cells!

“I think we know too little of nature and we do not have enough respect for it,” says Alessandra. And although she’s only recently begun to upload her observations to iNaturalist, she plans on continuing to add more, “for mutual enrichment of knowledge and to sensitize others to find out how many and what wonders inhabit this special world...nature is the best thing we have and we always have to respect it and cherish it.”

- by Tony Iwane

This Crested Caracara seen by brennan3909 in Denton County, Texas, is our Observation of the Week!

While this Crested Caracara observation took place in Texas, its story begins in Arkansas, where this bird was first found - injured and far out of its normal range. After being rehabilitated and radio tagged, it was released. Dr. Joan Morrison began to track the bird’s movements via GPS data and saw that it was headed to Texas.

The folks at Lewisville Lake Environmental Learning Area (LLELA)  in Texas were alerted to the bird’s presence in their area, and volunteer Michael Fox (MchlFx) put out the word to a dedicated group of local photographers and iNaturalist users, who searched for the Caracara and came up with two sightings - the one featured here by Larry Brennan, and one by Michael Fox. As Larry tells it, “[the Caracara] was flying west to east just above the tree line when I caught the first glimpse. The bird turned around quickly when it saw all the fishermen at the river and came back west when I got the shot through a window in the trees. The whole incident lasted about 10 seconds.” Michael’s observation (below) even showed it feeding, which was great information for Dr. Morrison.

As Erin Taylor, LLELA’s Nature Programs Coordinator, tells it, this kind of quick and dedicated response doesn’t happen overnight. Erin calls Michael Fox their “iNaturalist Evangelist,” and she considers herself one of his converts. Spurred by Michael’s involvement, she says LLELA has developed a community of iNat users through “giving workshops and inviting photographers, Master Naturalist chapters, and the general public to learn more about iNat and become our citizen science eyes on the ground. He's helping us create a dedicated, growing troop of naturalists who are hungry for knowledge and passionate about protecting wildlife.”

Using iNaturalist and their citizen scientists, LLELA would like to gather enough data to determine trends in the area - “we know there’s more depth to be explored.” With its growing iNaturalist community, they’re well on their way.

Check out LLELA’s iNaturalist Project.

- by Tony Iwane

This Mosquito pupa seen by grahame in Christchurch, New Zealand, is our Observation of the Week.

Personally I’m often too busy waving away mosquitos to really take a good look at them, which is what makes this beautiful close-up of a mosquito pupa so compelling. Look at the crystalline beauty of the compound eye and the delicate structure of its breathing tube (also known as a “trumpet”) - so cool. Even an oft-reviled animal like the mosquito (check out an adult mosquito below) can be stunning.

Grahame, the man who took these pictures, describes himself as “a photographer with an interest in fauna, rather than a natural historian with an interest in photography,” and it took his artist’s eye and innate curiosity (not to mention some hard work) to to come up with such a great image. Grahame’s been working with cameras for over fifty years now, and says “very rarely do you find me without a camera and close up gear in my bag.” He has over 1500 observations on NatureWatchNZ, iNaturalist’s sister site in New Zealand, and says NatureWatch “has been great for getting IDs of critters I don't know and just for the fun of flicking through others’ observations to see what they've found and try and learn a few more species.”

To get the image of the mosquito pupa, Grahame took three images (handheld) and focus stacked them to give the image greater depth of field.  That, however, was an easy shoot - other focus stacks can be “50+ images in the studio.” He’s also a passionate bird photographer, which obviously requires a totally different mindset and method. “Hopefully I haven't run out of new techniques and toys to play with,” he says.

Here’s to always learning new things and appreciating all forms of life!

- by Tony Iwane

- Grahame’s Photo Website.

- Cool video showing the mosquito lifecycle.

This Dynastor darius ssp. stygianus butterfly seen by magazhu in Yelapa, Mexico is our Observation of the Week!

Raised in a bilingual household in Mexico City by an American “chemical engineer/researcher/pianist father and a Mexican translator interpreter/Flamenco dancer mother,” Cheryl Harleston (@magazhu) has always had an interest in animals, and worked with Bengal tigers and as a large species veterinary assistant. However it’s her sighting of a butterfly, Dynastor darius ssp. stygianus, and its tiny eggs and larvae, that is our Observation of the Week.

Since 2003 Cheryl has been living in the remote town of Yelapa, in Mexico’s Jalisco state. After falling ill last year she forced herself to take walks around the untouched jungle of her backyard. “Thanks to the very slow steps I had to take I could notice many more things than usual, so to make it more interesting I started shooting anything I encountered with a cheap little camera I had,” she says. Her natural curiosity about the animals she encountered led her to iNaturalist, where she has uploaded over 2,800 observations in just over a year!

On November 12th she noticed a large butterfly laying eggs on some pineapple plants, so she posted photos of it to iNaturalist. NaturaLista lepidoptera curator Hugo Alvarez (@hugoalvarezg) identified it as Dynastor darius ssp. stygianus and, according the records he’s been able to find, this is the first record of it in Jalisco. He asked Cheryl to photograph the eggs and larvae so there would be documentation of this butterfly’s lifecycle - you can follow all of her photos and observations of it here. A very cool example of iNaturalist’s abilities to link naturalists of all interests and experience levels. 

(Oh, and check out the awesome snake mimicry of Darius dynastor ssp. dynastor, another subspecies of this butterfly, in its pupal phase. Whoa!)

“Thanks to iNaturalist I've also discovered that we have many protected species in this area, and even some rare ones...This has led me to work on some projects to educate the people here about our fauna,” says Cheryl, and she has begun to make informational posters to put up in her area, like the one above. “I find it very rewarding to be able to learn so much about all my animal ‘neighbors,’ and at the same time to be contributing my ‘grain of sand’ to science...it has been very exciting to follow up on [this butterfly], and I hope I'm able witness and register the complete cycle!”

- by Tony Iwane

Hey, iNaturalists! See something that blows your mind? Click ‘Add to favorites’ so it can be considered for the Observation of the Week!

This Glassy Tiger Butterfly photographed by Sanjit Debbarma in Assam, India and posted by ivijayanand is our Observation of the Week!

Dr. Vijay Anand Ismavel has been a pediatric surgeon at the Makunda Christian Leprosy and General Hospital in the Assam region of India for over 22 years, but it was a heart attack in 2008 that caused him to really notice the wildlife surrounding him in this remote area. After the heart attack,

I was asked to walk 2 kms every day. I found this tiresome and took my daughters along. One day I noticed a tapping sound and found an unfamiliar woodpecker pecking on a dead bamboo stump...I photographed it and posted it on Flickr and it was identified as a relatively rare woodpecker (Stripe-breasted woodpecker – Dendrocopos atratus). I became very interested and started noticing all sorts of interesting birds and insects...I found that observing, photographing and reporting...wildlife in the campus and surrounding areas was very relaxing and added new meaning to my walks.

Dr. Ismavel soon upgraded his camera equipment (his wife budgeted it under “Cardiac Rehabilitation Expenses”) and began taking coworkers on his nature walks, later posting their observations on iNaturalist in addition to Flickr - the Makunda Nature Club was formed! Earlier this year they went on a trek into nearby forests and were the first to photograph a van Hasselt's Sunbird in India.

The Glassy Tiger Butterfly observation was photographed by Mr. Sanjit Debbarma (Dr. Ismavel posted it for him and is working on getting everyone in the club an iNat account) during the Makunda Nature Club’s attempt to find the van Hasselt’s Sunbird again. The club plans to soon start “the Makunda Spider Survey which will document the first 100 (or more) unique spider species in the campus (and surroundings) with an eminent Indian arachnologist.” There is now even a Department of Biodiversity Documentation and Wildlife Conservation at the hospital and school.

Many of the villagers in the surrounding forest participate in deforestation and trapping, and Dr. Ismavel says

the greatest impact we foresee is in the keen interest being taken by school students...We hope to instill in these children a sense of wonder at the sheer beauty and variety of nature around them by making them members of the student wing of the Makunda Nature Club. We hope that they in turn will influence their parents and other villagers. Some of them came with us as guides on the three treks we had into deep forest. Maybe one day they would exchange their woodcutting for ecotourism and work to save the forests and their biodiversity.

It’s amazing what a photograph, an observation, and an online naturalist community can accomplish. Keep up the great work, Dr. Ismavel and the Makunda Nature Club!

This Texas Diamondback Terrapin seen by robberfly in Aransas County, Texas, is our Observation of the Week!

Ken-ichi here, guest-writing this week's OOTW. I had the very great privilege of spending the last week naturalizing parts of Texas with iNat superstars Mark Rosenstein (maractwin), Liam O'Brien (robberfly), and most importantly Greg Lasley (greglasley, who generously hosted us and showed us around his great state), and while this turtle that Liam photographed was but one of many amazing organisms we observed, it seemed significant to me for a number of reasons.

For those who don't know, the Diamondback Terrapin is a turtle of brackish coastal marshes that can be found all up and down the Atlantic seaboard of the United states, as well as around the Gulf coast. By the early 20th century they had been nearly hunted to extinction for use in turtle soup, but while they have managed to hold on (perhaps due to the decreased popularity of that dish), they remain threatened across their range due to car and boat injuries, death in crab traps, and most importantly, destruction of their coastal wetland habitats.

I grew up seeing these beautiful turtles at the Meigs Point Nature Center, Hammonasset State Beach, in Connecticut, so seeing them in Texas was like running into an old childhood friend in a faraway place. This population has special significance for iNaturalist, however, because it was first documented by Matt Muir while visiting the same spot with Greg Lasley in 2014, when it caused quite a stir in the Texas herpetological community. One herper called it his “holy grail of Texas turtles.”

“That's one of the things I love about iNaturalist,” Matt says. “Observations can be more valuable/special than one realizes in the moment, and one doesn't need to be an expert or taxonomic specialist to contribute something notable. Observe everything!”

And as you can see from Greg's observation from the same spot, several other folks from iNat have had history with these turtles in this part of the world.

To me, this was iNat at it's best: people connecting to nature through careful observation, but also connecting to our past selves through evoked memory, and connecting to each other through shared experience. This was sort of the underlying theme of this entire trip as we met up with several generations of Texas naturalists, some of whom have spent lifetimes exploring the wildlands of Texas and seemed to know not just every plant and butterfly, but plenty of people we met along the way as well, and every animal (human or otherwise) seemed to have a story. Others, like me, were completely new to the state, so every common bird and weed was a fresh experience to be greeted with our strange naturalist's combination of joy and scrutiny, the subject for new memories and stories.

It was a great trip, with great people. If you haven't already, try and find other iNat folks in your area! The more you know people in person, the better the community gets.

• by Ken-ichi Ueda

This Long-tailed Blue butterfly seen by Tamsin Carlisle in the United Arab Emirates is our Observation of the Week!

After obtaining a BA in Zoology from Oxford and a PhD in Evolutionary Ecology at UC Santa Barbara, Tamsin Carlisle had every intention of being a field biologist, but the “disruptive nature of life itself” intervened and she has since become a successful business journalist, based in Dubai and writing mainly about oil and gas.

She’s never given up on her passion for biology, however, and soon after moving to Dubai she joined the Dubai Natural History Group, a group whose members “head out of the Glitter City to explore the surrounding expanses of far-from-barren desert and mountains, along with the occasional mangrove swamp.” For the past year she’s been the Bird Recorder for the group, and began to use iNaturalist as a way for her to keep a list of her sightings, and for help with identification.

With her background in evolutionary biology, Ms. Carlisle is interested in “how new species arise and become established, why they spread or contract geographically and wink in and out of existence over time.” This led to her observation of the Long-tailed Blue butterfly, which she noticed looks and behaves similarly to another lycaenid butterfly, the the Plains Cupid (above). The former she has seen east of the rugged Hajar Mountains, and the latter she observed on the western side of them. These observations, along with two similar Lacertid lizard species divided by the mountains, has made her wonder if “a pattern [was] emerging and, if so, what role was being played by the physical barrier of the Hajar Mountains?”

With questions such as these, in “a region where fauna and flora have been incompletely inventoried and mapped,” she writes, “citizen naturalists can help.”

Citizen Scientists: Keep exploring. Keep sharing.

Maybe your discovery will become an iNaturalist Observation of the Week!

- by Tony Iwane

Hey, iNaturalists! See something that blows your mind? Click ‘Add to favorites’ so it can be considered for the Observation of the Week!

This Jewelled Gecko observed by Shane Orchard in New Zealand is our Observation of the Week - which also happens to be Conservation Week in New Zealand!

A riparian ecologist who’s often “on the lookout for interesting patterns in nature,” Shane spotted this Jewelled Gecko (Naultinus gemmeus) in a beech forest along the way to New Zealand’s Southern Alps. Jewelled Geckos are endemic to the South Island of New Zealand, and Shane says they are “distinguished by having more variation in color and pattern than any other gecko in New Zealand, with different color combinations being characteristic of the different regions!” The two main populations known are on Otago and Banks Peninsulas, with another smaller population found in Southland. In addition, they are occasionally recorded on the eastern slopes of the Southern Alps, as was the case here, and less is known about these populations.

In 2012 the Jewelled Gecko was reclassified the as “At Risk” under the New Zealand Threat Classification System in recognition of having an ongoing decline, partly due to pasture development. A more unusual threat is that these and other New Zealand geckos are targeted by wildlife smugglers, including a recent example of Jewelled Gecko smuggling that was discovered by authorities in Germany. “This is a key reason why iNaturalist observations of threatened species are automatically obscured,” explains Shane.

Shane is also a Trustee of the NZBRN Trust who has developed the NatureWatch NZ site, the regional node of the iNat network in New Zealand. The NatureWatch NZ team started off by hosting a separate instance of iNaturalist, but New Zealand developments “have now been merged back into the global iNaturalist platform and are now available for all!”

Citizen Scientists: Keep exploring. Keep sharing.

Maybe your discovery will become an iNaturalist Observation of the Week!

• by Tony Iwane

Hey, iNaturalists! See something that blows your mind? Click ‘Add to favorites’ so it can be considered for the Observation of the Week!

This colony of Straw-colored Fruit Bats observed by Martin Grimm in Tanzania is our Observation of the Week - which happens to be Bat Week!

A medical doctor from Leipzig, Germany, Martin Grimm volunteered at Tanzanian hospitals while on parental leave after his children were born. In Tanzania he would take the babies on nature walks and photograph wildlife as the babies slept, posting pictures to Flickr. That’s where Jakob Fahr, creator of the Afribats project on iNaturalist, found Martin’s photo and invited him to post it on iNat. Martin jokingly calls this first iNaturalist experience an “infection” and began to look for more bats “in villagers’ houses,...in hollow trees, in hotels. Bats can be found almost everywhere when looking close enough.” He now has 43 observations posted in the Afribats project! 

During Martin’s latest trip to Tanzania, Jakob asked that he look for some Straw-colored Fruit Bat (Eidolon helvum) colonies and estimate their numbers. After finding several outside of Dar es Salaam, Martin’s guide brought him to a colony he knew by the Goethe Institute, which is the colony pictured in this post. Jakob says they have “been studying the local movement ecology of straw-coloured fruit bats with miniaturized GPS-loggers, but their large-scale movements are still a bit of a mystery, thus documenting whether these bats are around at a given colony and time is highly valuable information that helps us disentangle their long-distance migrations.” This colony, numbering between 10,000 and 100,000 individuals, was previously unknown on Afribats and is important data for the project. 

For Jakob, the “AfriBats project strives to showcase the incredible diversity of African bats, and to put their manifold ecosystem services into the limelight rather than their role as carriers of diseases, which is largely based on speculation rather than hard facts. Martin's excellent pictures have certainly helped to illustrate both the beauty of African bats and their important ecological roles!” 

Martin continues to contribute observations of many taxa to iNaturalist, including 40 observations in the Primates of East Africa project, and has begun to document the forests surrounding Leipzig. “My goal is to get an overview of life there around the day and around the year. So I try to visit the forest often and during day and night. This changed my life as naturalist a lot - didn't do things like this before I knew iNat.”

Citizen Scientists: Keep exploring. Keep sharing.

Maybe your discovery will become an iNaturalist Observation of the Week!

- by Tony Iwane

Hey, iNaturalists! See something that blows your mind? Click ‘Add to favorites’ so it can be considered for the Observation of the Week!