An Interview with Thomas Mesaglio (@thebeachcomber)
Last month I made my first (and hopefully not last) visit to Australia, and was lucky enough to have Thomas Mesaglio (@thebeachcomber) and his family show me the incredible flora and fauna of the Sydney area. I’ve known Thomas from his time as a moderator on the iNaturalist Forum, and he’s contributed to iNat in so many ways. He’s added tens of thousands of observations, hundreds of thousands of identifications, serves as a site curator and forum moderator, and also helps organize the Sydney City Nature Challenge.
Thomas and another iNat user Corey T. Callaghan (@coreytcallaghan) have worked on several papers using iNat data over the last few years and their most recent, “The benefits of contributing to the citizen science platform iNaturalist as an identifier,” (it’s open access) had just been published when I was in Australia.
So after a wonderful day naturalizing with Sydney-based iNatters @sofiazed1, @cynthia_c, @jennyvzo, and @eamonn_c, Thomas was generous enough to talk about himself, iNat, and that paper with me. Here’s the video:
- two other papers Thomas and Corey have co-authored are “An overview of the history, current contributions and future outlook of iNaturalist in Australia” and “Rapidly mapping fire effects on biodiversity at a large-scale using citizen science”.
- many, many, iNat users contributed to “The benefits of contributing to the citizen science platform iNaturalist as an identifier,” please check out the paper to see the entire list.
- Thomas’s book “Seashells of North Haven Beach” is available here.
- take a look at iNat’s Identifier Profiles to learn a bit more about some of iNat’s top identifiers.
Comments
Great interview, well done!
Congrats!
Wonderful, Thomas!
This is what it's all about, curiosity, connectedness, possibility.
And we need more identifiers...if one is a prolific poster, then try and give back with IDs, using 'follow taxon' functions at least.
And donate if you can!
Great to put a face to the name. Thanks for all your IDs, thebeachcomber.
Amazing and appropriate shirt/top! That should become the iNat uniform so we can recognise each other when out observing.
Thomas! My esteemed co-author*! I'm delighted to "see" you in person and hear your story....Sounds a lot like me except substitute the beaches of Southern California in the 1950s and 1960s in place of your childhood setting. Thank you for all your efforts.
*https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354807768_'First_Known_Photographs_of_Living_Specimens'_the_power_of_iNaturalist_for_recording_rare_tropical_butterflies
Congratulation
Wonderful! What an inspiring and knowledgeable interview, congrats Thomas!
Fantastic video! Thomas, I've watched several of the Great Southern Bioblitz videos and have really been inspired by how you use iNaturalist. It was great hearing your story about beachcombing and how you ended up getting into iNaturalist.
That article Corey and you wrote is fantastic and I love how the video summed it. Corey is now in Florida and I am looking forward to meeting him sometime :-)
Thanks for all you do for the iNaturalist community and to inspire others to realize how amazing the natural world is!!
Such an inspirational interview!
Great interview Thomas. I agree that the iNaturalist platform sparks interest in a lot of different fields and is a great learning tool regards Graeme
You're cool, Thomas!
👍
bravo
Nice guy, nice interview!
Awesome stuff
Yay Thomas!!! Congratulations all round. And Thank You!
Also, nice outfit Thomas! :)
Great video, Thomas. It's outstanding work you're doing!
Excellent. And, yes, I love his shirt as well @diegoalmendras
Great interview and also the work done on iNaturalist. I don't normally have time to watch these sorts of things but have heard of the legend so peeked at the story behind it.
Great interview! Really shows the importance of iNat.
thank you, Thomas.
Really liked the 7 reasons.
I'm an iNaturalist since 2 weeks, going through my data and photos of the Zanzibar Archipelago collected within the last 30 years. Suddenly it all makes sense, I found an outlet, iNaturalist is a VERY interested and cooperating community.
Thank you, Thomas
and thanks to all you iNaturalists!
Yusuf
Thank you for all you do Thomas, and for speaking so eloquently about what brings us together here!
Well done Thomas! 🥳
I'm already a fairly active identifier (I'm closing in on 100,000 IDs), but this interview has inspired me to do even more - thanks!
Great video. Many thanks for sharing
Fantastic work & very important contributions Thomas! I'll cite your papers when promoting citizen science.
Great interview! Thanks for amazing leadership of Sydney/Australia citizen science!
Hey Thomas, that's awesome thanks for giving me a bit more of an understanding from an expert's point of view! Would love to go out for an explore with you next time I'm in Sydney...
Great interview! Always appreciate hearing iNat contributors speak on what iNat means to them.
Brilliant! I’ve seen your name pop up as an identifier on so many different observations, and it is great to put a face to it! Love your work, love your attitude and love your shirt!
I love that shirt as well! It shows so many different arthropods on it! Reminds me of a shirt Robert Whyte wore in a photo of him in A Field Guide to Spiders of Australia.
thanks all for the kind words, and for making iNat such a great place :)
if any of you find yourselves in Sydney, flick me a message and I'd love to show you around
@thebeachcomber
I would just like to say thank you for all the flags you helped me out with :-)
@karenweaving62 , Great interview Thomas showcasing some of the mutual benefits of iNaturalist/Citizen Science coming together and creating, contributing to Quality Research, useful data, sharing knowledges we each bring to the platform/community.
I also thought your articles with Corey T Callaghan, 2020 about Contributions and future outlook of iNaturalist in Australia, was well presented and written.
Always a pleasure to meet fellow iNaturalists virtually and in person as occasions permit.
Thank you for your great efforts, keep up the good work.Congratulations all round well done 🙂👏
Wonderful! Thank you Thomas and Tony.
Excellent interview! Now I know who I'll be contacting if I visit Australia! ;-)
great project, it sounds wonderful. I am inspired by your work!!
ah, it was time to look in the dictionary what a "beachcomber" is and it turned out it is something different than a "Zeekomkommer" (Sea cucumbers are echinoderms from the class Holothuroidea)
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