Our Observation of the Week is this shining hookeria moss, seen in the United Kingdom by @scrappapertiger!

Note: Sonny Hallett (@scrappapertiger) is an accomplished writer and blogger and the following is written by them. Nice work, Sonny! - Tony

I’ve always been very into nature, ever since I was a little kid. I’m very short-sighted, but my eyesight allows me to focus very clearly on tiny things - I have unusually good microscopic vision. Partly because of this, I’ve always been very drawn to tiny things in nature, like insects, fungi and tiny plants. There’s a world of magical weirdness, beauty and detail around us almost all the time, just on a scale most people tend not to notice. Insects take on endearing personalities in their movements, tiny fungi, lichens and miniature plants provide a unique and alien-looking landscape.

Nature is a big part of my life. Being an illustrator, I derive a lot of inspiration from the things I see around me when I'm outdoors. I am also autistic, and while living in the noise and stress of the city can be very stressful and anxiety-inducing for many people, I think it can be particularly hard on autistic folks. Nature has always been an escape for me: the zoology, identification and classification aspect appeals a lot to the way my brain works, because I like learning categories and understanding patterns, while the quiet focus and mindfulness of just observing things around me in minute detail, looking for tiny insects, mushrooms, how a moss grows, and so on, helps to keep me in the moment and calm my anxieties. Here's a comic I made about mindfulness and beetles: https://medium.com/@sonyahallett/mindfulness-and-beetles-8fd55a2388e8 I hope that by sharing my finds, experiences and interesting information with others, more people can become more interested in and care about the richness of life around them.

The shining hookeria was introduced to me by a friend, who lives in and knows a lot about the ecology of the Celtic rainforest in Wales. He took me on a tour of a stunning watery wall of bryophytes and ferns when I went to visit, including the rare Wilson's filmy fern. I'd never really looked at mosses and liverworts very much close-up before, and I was particularly taken by how the shining hookeria has such large translucent cells, where individual cells can be seen almost with the naked eye (certainly with my eyes!). I took the picture with a macro attachment clip on my phone, which with practice has been surprisingly effective for macro detail shots.

I add finds to iNaturalist when I go out exploring, partly because it gives me a personal record of what I've found, but I like the community aspect that folks can help with and give identifications. I loved that on a recent bioblitz down south we were able to collectively find and identify an invasive eucalyptus tortoise beetle, which hadn't been recorded in that area before, and the expertise available to help verify and record. I also like looking at what others are finding in my area, or areas I visit.

(this section by Tony Iwane)

- The iNat Community Forum discusses macro clip-on lenses for smartphones, as well as other cameras, in this thread.

- iNat user @damontighe wrote a how-to for macro clip-on lenses.

- Here are all Phylum Bryophyta observations on iNat, ranked by number of faves.

We're in Macao for the 131st stop on the iNaturalist World Tour. Again, apologies for the continued abbreviated World Tour posts. Tiny Macao, Like Hong Kong, is former colonial enclave along the cost of China. While Hong Kong was British, Macao was Portuguese. The top observers are @kitchang, @hannahleung, @kuok, @don945, @alexckng, @erickwan, @kelvin17, @macao\_antman, @kisu11668, and @shellfishgene.

The number of observations per month jumped up in 2019.

The top identifiers are @johnallcock, @johnascher, @kitchang, @aither, and @rajibmaulick.

What can we do to get more people in Macao using iNaturalist? Please share your thoughts below.

@kitchang @hannahleung @kuok @don945 @alexckng @johnallcock @johnascher @kitchang @aither @rajibmaulick

We’ll be back tomorrow in Reunion!

We're in Senegal for the 130th stop on the iNaturalist World Tour. Again, apologies for the continued abbreviated World Tour posts. Senegal is surrounded by Mauritania to the north, Mali to the east, Guinea to the southeast, and Guinea-Bissau to the southwest. As a former French colony, Senegal surrounds the Gambia which was British and buffers the Gambia river.

Top observers in the Saint-Louis Region are @rangersara, who was a peace corp volunteer, @liesvanrompaey, and @jujurenoult. Top observer @mattiamenchetti has observations clustered near the Thiès and Dakar regions. North of the Gambia, top observers @marcellc, @antarduengo and @tierraiberica are clustered in the Sine-Saloum region while south of the Gambia, in the region formerly known as Casamance, @marcorastell are top observers. Further inland, @tsuchan and @gabindiaye are top observers.

The number of observations per month ticked up a bit in 2017. There was a peak in September 2019 driven by @mattiamenchetti and @tsuchan.

The top three identifiers are the usual Africa big 3 identifiers: @jakob, @johnnybirder, and @marcoschmidtffm. Other top identifiers include @greenline and @rajibmaulick.

What can we do to get more people in Senegal using iNaturalist? Please share your thoughts below.

@rangersara @mattiamenchetti @jujurenoult @tsuchan @liesvanrompaey @jakob @johnnybirder @marcoschmidtffm @greenline @rajibmaulick

We’ll be back tomorrow in Macao!

We're in Haiti for the 129th stop on the iNaturalist World Tour. Again, apologies for the continued abbreviated World Tour posts. Haiti makes up the western half of the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean. It has a French colonial past while the eastern half of the island, the Dominican Republic, has a Spanish one. The top observer by a wide margin is @mreith. Other top observers include @ronsavage, @haitiecology, @renedurocher, @ssaarlas, @ospeleo, @leandroop, @haitibioguy, @krloucks, and @loubens54.

The number of observations per month jumped up in 2019.

The top identifiers include @joshuagsmith, @mack911, @mreith, @greenline, and @john8.

What can we do to get more people in Haiti using iNaturalist? Please share your thoughts below.

@mreith @ronsavage @haitiecology @renedurocher @ssaarlas @ospeleo @joshuagsmith @mack911 @greenline @john8

We’ll be back tomorrow in Senegal!

We're in Kosovo for the 127th stop on the iNaturalist World Tour. Again, apologies for the continued abbreviated World Tour posts. Formerly part of Yugoslavia, Kosovo is a disputed territory. For example, Serbia does not recognize Kosovo as a sovereign state. Kosovo is landlocked with Serbia to the north and east, Montenegro to the West, Albania and Macedonia to the south. The top observer by a wide margin is @besnikfetiu1. Other top observers include @albert52, @michael, @qendrimsaqipi2, @liridonshala, @endrit2000, @gentballabani, @venerashabani, @besnik2, and @emrullaspahiu.

Observations per month jumped up in June 2018 mostly due to @qendrimsaqipi2 with the background rate growing since that time.

The top identifier and the leader of most categories is @kosova1. Other top identifiers include @ldacosta, @aleksandergolema, @alexis\_orion, and @ribabo

What can we do to get more people in Kosovo using iNaturalist? Please share your thoughts below.

@besnikfetiu1 @albert52 @michael @qendrimsaqipi2 @liridonshala @kosova1 @ldacosta @aleksandergolema @alexis_orion @ribabo

We’ll be back tomorrow in Haiti!

Our Observation of the Week is this Australopacifica sarasiniana land planarian, seen in New Caledonia by @damienbr!

“I'm working as a software engineer and spend my free time in nature,” says Damien Brouste, a resident of New Caledonia. Damien focused on underwater photography for several years (check out one of his photos of coral under UV light here), until “my boat get caught in a tempest earlier this year. So I had to find a new hobby. That's when I discovered the magic of the New Cal forest by night.”

The difference between night and day is amazing. I used to hike, and only experienced the forest by day. It was hard to find any life. Everything changes when the night comes. [The forest] comes alive. Even the sounds are completely different. It can be dead calm during the day, and all the cicadas and crickets start to sing when the light goes down...So, I started to make trips into the forest by night.

Damien soon started a naturalist group in New Caledonia, where members exchange their photos and plan weekly trips together. It was on one of these trips that Damien came across the brightly colored worm you see above.

One of my friends was looking for geckos (eyes up), another for arachnids (eyes middle) and I was looking for small arthropods (eyes down)....You can't miss a planarian with those striking colors. It was the third individual (of this species) I found, but I still decided to take pictures as it had a nice posture...Differences can be really small between species. 

Then this observation was chosen as the Observation of the Day. That's when I got an ID for it.

The identifier of Damien’s observation was user @leigh\_winsor, one of iNat’s top identifiers of land planarians. Leigh has been working with land planarian systematics and taxonomy, much of it in his free time, for 47 years! 

“Now I am retired I can really indulge my passion with land planarians,” says Leigh. 

Identifying specimens on iNaturalist (I did this also for the Australian website BowerBird before it closed and transferred to iNaturalist) is particularly interesting as you can often see photos of live specimens of species with which you are familiar that were originally described from preserved specimens - a special thrill! Also provides me with more time to taxonomically revise various species and genera of land planarians, particularly those in the Australian Region.

Land planarians are flatworms which have adapted to terrestrial life, moving about on their “creeping sole,” which is covered in tiny cilia. They are carnivorous, and most prey on other terrestrial invertebrates, feeding on them with the pharynx located near the middle of their bodies. The pharynx is able to produce digestive juices that begin to digest the prey outside of the worm’s body. Leigh tells me that not much is known about this particular species, aside from the fact that it was described in 1924 by Schroder, and it’s one of 23 recorded species in New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands

“I have gotten great help from the iNat community in identifying my pictures,” says Damien (above, after a dive in an underwater cave), “and it's very easy to find an expert which can help you to identify your find. iNat gives me a more scientific approach to my observations, and identifications are way easier. Image recognition is a nice tool, it just needs more data from New Cal. That's why I encourage my friends to use it.”

Some quotes have been lightly edited for clarity and flow.

- This video depicts a land planarian capturing several types of prey, it’s pretty impressive.

- Leigh Winsor published this paper describing a new genus and species of land planarian, part of a collaboration with ORSTOM and MNHN.

It's Week 19 of the iNaturalist World Tour. First, lets take stock of the fact that we've made it through half of all the 253 countries we plan to visit on this tour. As the remainin ~125 countries become increasingly smaller or less visited we may mix up the formula of these posts a bit to keep things moving along smoothly, more on that soon. But for now, we're still in abreviated status quo mode because of the power shutoffs in Northern California. This week we'll visit Guyana and Haiti in the Neotropics, Kosovo in Europe, Senegal in Africa, tiny Macao nestled alongside China, tiny Reunion not far from Madagascar, and Iraq in the Middle East.

We begin in Guyana. Guyana sits between Venezuala and Suriname. While Venezuela and Suriname have Spanish and Dutch colonial pasts, Guyana was a British colony and is the only English speaking country in South America. The top @paul\_prior. @cullen, @josh\_vandermeulen, @hoppy1951, @birdernaturalist, @wjcrins, @toucan55, @neomorphus, @tobypcr, and @markconboy are other top observers. Most top observers are clustered in the interior of the country near the Brazilian border, but there is also a cluster around the capital of Georgetown along the coast.

The graph observations per month picked up in 2017 but has remained fairly jagged indicative of more visitors than residents.

@paul\_prior is also the top identifier as well as the top observer. Other top identifiers include @jbroadhead, @johnascher, @john8, and @camilojotage.

What can we do to improve iNaturalist in Guyana? Please share your thoughts below.

@paul_prior @cullen @josh_vandermeulen @hoppy1951 @birdernaturalist @wjcrins @jbroadhead @johnascher @john8 @camilojotage

We’ll be back tomorrow in Kosovo!

We're in the Maldives for the 126th stop on the iNaturalist World Tour. Again, apologies for the abbreviated World Tour post today as we continue to deal with power outages and evacuations in Northern California. The top 10 observers are @lovelyclemmy, @nakarb, @tictac, @chamaeleo, @nadyky, @missnarjess, @jim-anderson, @maractwin, @ktatum21, and @bobbyj2004.

Observations per month are still quite jagged but the background rate has inched up in the last year.

The top 5 identifiers are @maractwin, @jeyre, @tim\_wilms, @clinton, and @joe\_fish

What can we do to get more people in the Maldives using iNaturalist? Please share your thoughts below.

@lovelyclemmy @nakarb @tictac @chamaeleo @nadyky @maractwin @jeyre @tim_wilms @clinton @joe_fish

We’ll be back tomorrow in Guyana!

We're in Papua New Guinea for the 125th stop on the iNaturalist World Tour. First, apologies for the abbreviated World Tour post today and likely the next few days as we deal with power outages and evacuations in Northern California. Papua New Guinea comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea. The top 10 observers are @shelley\_b, @markuslilje, @jim-anderson, @sonnyjimbo, @tonydiver, @tomdriscoll, @coenobita, @thierrycordenos, @bushmonkey140, and @djringer.

Observations have ramped up in the last two years peaking in September of this month.

The top 5 identifiers are @rfoster, @joshuagsmith, @maractwin, @kemper, and @pihlaviita

What can we do to get more people in Papua New Guinea using iNaturalist? Please share your thoughts below.

@shelley_b @markuslilje @jim-anderson @sonnyjimbo @tonydiver @rfoster @joshuagsmith @maractwin @kemper @pihlaviita

We’ll be back tomorrow in the Maldives!

We're in Iran for the 124th stop on the iNaturalist World Tour. The top observer is @apbbani, an herpetologist, based around the capital of Tehran. You can read more about @apbbani in this Observation of the Week post about a Lorestan Newt he spotted. Other top observers are also clustered around Tehran such as @shahrzadasa, @shauheen, @mahdiraeisi, and @houman_drd. @marylauredelaharpe's observations are clustered to the south of Tehran, @sghiaseddin to the east, and @kiarashvqr to the west in the town of Rasht. Much further south @jiroiguchi and @paulschrijvershof have clusters of observations. Don't miss this Observation of the Week post about the bizzare Spider-tailed Horned Viper seen by @matthieuberroneau in Iran.

Observations ticked up in 2017. The highest peak was in July of 2017 driven mostly by @apbbani.

@sammyboy2059 is the top identifier and leads in birds and mammals. @cliygh-and-mia leads in herps and fish. @kastani leads in plants. Other top identifiers include @rajibmaulick and @khaledayyach

What can we do to get more people in Iran using iNaturalist? Please share your thoughts below or on this forum thread.

@apbbani @shahrzadasa @shauheen @mahdiraeisi @marylauredelaharpe @sammyboy2059 @cliygh-and-mia @kastani @rajibmaulick @khaledayyach

We’ll be back tomorrow in Papua New Guinea!