Adopt-a-State to Annotate
Annotations streamline adding observations to project
Now that we are a collector project, we no longer have to painstakingly add caterpillar observations to the project one at a time. However, they still need to be annotated Life Stage = Larva in order for the project to pull them in, and ensuring that observations of larval Lepidoptera are annotated appropriately still represents a significant effort. For example, I personally review all Lepidoptera observations from 12 US states and 129 Texas counties, and I have a hard time keeping up. A few other intrepid volunteers review similarly large chunks of the project area (or have in the past). I would like to maintain good coverage to maximize the completeness of the project, but would also like to share the effort among more people so that no one feels burdened by the number of observations awaiting their review.
We need your help!
To make this happen, we would love to have people volunteer to take on the review of Lepidoptera observations for a state or province in the project area (or any group or subset thereof - a tri-state area, a single county, you name it). If you are interested, please leave a comment below naming the area you'd like to be responsible for & I will create a custom search URL for you to use. It's fun & easy, and is a great opportunity to learn about the Lepidoptera in a particular area.
How it works
You can use whatever process you want for adding annotations, but I'll briefly summarize the way I do it as one option.
It would be great if there were a way to select multiple observations and annotate them in batch, but for now this is the most efficient process I have come up with. I'll be interested to hear if other people have different suggestions.
Comments
I'm happy to work on SC.
Before I volunteer, let me make certain this is in my skillset (which is very limited in this area :)--you just need people to review and mark "larva" for caterpillars? I can do that for New Castle County, DE.
would like to work on VT...open to other areas as well
I can take care of KY
I can help with Virginia
I'd like New York State!
I can work on NC.
Thank you, everyone, for your interest! This is a great start. I have added basic instructions at the bottom of my post. For some of the places you selected, I know that they have been fully reviewed for all observations up to today, so the search links will include a filter to only include observations added after today (therefore you may see few or no observations for a few days); for other states, I'm not sure what their current review status is - I will do the same, but will also include a link to past observations in case you are willing to also work through any backlog, and I'll check with other group members who have worked on those places to see if they can confirm past review status. Hope that all makes sense. Here are the links:
@norm_shea: SC observations added today & in the future, SC observations added before today (review status pending on the latter - @jtuttle or @kylejones, have either of you kept up with SC observations, or know they have been reviewed through a certain date?)
@octobertraveler - yes, just need people to mark caterpillars Life Stage = Larva, as you stated; here is your link: New Castle Co., DE observations added today & in the future (all past DE observations have been reviewed for caterpillars & annotated)
@judywelna: VT observations added today & in the future, VT observations added before today (review status pending on the latter - @berkshirenaturalist or @kylejones, have either of you kept up with VT observations, or know they have been reviewed through a certain date?)
@jabrams_foc: KY observations added today & in the future (all past observations have been reviewed for caterpillars & annotated)
@kburke: VA observations added today & in the future, VA observations added before today (review status pending on the latter - @kylejones, have you kept up with VA observations, or know they have been reviewed through a certain date?)
@themez: NY observations added today & in the future, NY observations added before today (review status pending on the latter - @jtuttle or @kylejones, have either of you kept up with NY observations, or know they have been reviewed through a certain date?)
@redpandakitty: observations added today & in the future (all past observations have been reviewed for caterpillars & annotated)
Please let me know if I goofed one of the links, if you want to take on additional areas, if this no longer seems like something you want to work on, or if you have any questions. Most of all, thank you for your help keeping the project strong!
Got it. Looking forward to helping. :)
@eraskin, I've been trying to keep up with the updating the SC observations since the project changed status and think I've covered the vast majority. Certainly happy to have somebody check behind me though.
Hi Thanks for the link! I have a question - what do you think about this type of observation? https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/20215737
It's not of the actual larvae but of evidence of one. Don't want to include something that people don't want to see.
@themez, I usually skip over observations that show evidence of a larval Lepidopteran without the organism itself being visible (e.g., leaf mines, larval cases, webs, etc.). Good question.
Can this program be tweaked (for future posts) so that the poster gets a prompt - is stopped from submitting - without the annotations which scientists deem important? (Ebird won't let you submit without the exact date, for example.) I understand that this project is to correct a backlog of entries, but seems like a proactive change in the posting form would prevent future backlogs.
@judywelna, that's a question for the iNaturalist developers - you can post it on the iNaturalist Google Group if you'd like. I agree that it would be helpful for this project, but I'm afraid they are unlikely to go for it as a default on the platform.
@eraskin , I have only sporadically worked on annotations in the past few months, and the areas I've worked on tend to be southern U.S. states, Mexico, and Canada. Unless someone else has been working on them, I'm sure they are not up to date. iNat no longer seems to allow paging way back to old observations (has anyone else noticed that?), so when I've worked on it, I haven't been able to go way back and work forward. Not sure I can commit to a particular state or area to keep up with regularly, so I'm glad to be an occasional "annotater-at-large" :-) if that's okay.
@eraskin I can't say that I recall how thorough my Annotations have been for any particular location. I often add life stage if I am looking closely at an observation, but don't know that I have attempted to annotate all cats for a particular state.
Just found this project!!! (somebody should have mentioned it to me!) I will go on annotation sprees when I need to know when a specific species of lep ecloses or how many generations they have in Texas in a year, so I will do annotations of all life stages for Texas.
I do lots of lep observations, but the most frustrating aspect for me is, I tend to make lots of observations for many taxa types, and there is no way to annotate life cycle data unless it's been changed recently. In the past, you could add a life cycle data tag, but it was totally unrelated to the annotation. It would be nice if there was a little checkbox where I could just click "larva" when I select "lepidoptera" (or any insect with complete metamorphosis)
@nanofishology, welcome to the caterpillar project! Sorry that I never thought to mention it to you. We'll be grateful to have your help annotating Texas Lep observations (of which there are MANY - when we originally went through the backlog a few years ago, at the beginning of the project, I divided eastern Texas into 15 sections to make it more manageable).
To make sure I understand the second part of your comment - are you requesting the ability to annotate observations while adding them, rather than having to go back through and annotate? I have been somewhat dormant on new observations over the last few months, but I remember also finding this frustrating, and perhaps posting about it on the Google Group. Would go look for a post to link to, but I don't have time tonight. Seems like an obvious functionality improvement - perhaps several of us can speak together in support of it and get on the developers' radar.
To be fair, a few years ago I was not yet the iNat monster I am now, and my caterpillar habit didn't start up until the Tawny Emperor Apocalypse of 2016. My free time tends to wax and wane with no rhyme or reason, but I'll add this project to my List so I don't forget about it under my pile. I prefer to go by taxa rather than region--are there any that are higher priority than others?
Yes, you are understanding my comment correctly. I do bulk uploads, and add all my observations to my projects and set my location visibility settings in the same step as I do my identifications. Once I hit "upload," with very few exceptions, I don't touch that observation again. I do a lot of rearing, and for a while I was using iNaturalist to track specific individuals, creating specific tags, using the proper life stage annotation. This was in 2016 before they had rolled out the current version of the annotations, which I LOVE--but all of the time I had spent carefully adding life stage information didn't actually go the same data bucket the site was pulling life stage info from. I was not very happy to see none of my observations had any life stage information present! So I pretty much just stopped. I still exhaustively document life stages, but it's more valuable for me to do my obsessive daily posting in my blog, and keep my entries in iNat limited to major changes in size/morphology. Also, I already can't keep up with my backlog (still have photos August 2018 to upload...)
I have hundreds of caterpillars to upload and the thought of manually going through and annotating every single one of them when I should be able to bulk select all of them, just like I can during my uploads, and annotate all of them as larvae... dear isopods save me
Priority taxa: I don't have any priorities, trying to give equal treatment to all Leps. There are some geographic areas that are much less thoroughly annotated than others (e.g., Mexico), and it would be great to get more annotation attention on those areas, but no taxon priorities.
I couldn't find any of the places on the Google Group where I requested "annotate on upload," but it has already come up on the new forum here. Add your voice! Pity that your past tags didn't convert into the annotation system. : /
I will be glad to help wherever you need, I try to annotate any that I come across in the Identify tab...
I am happy to take care of massachusetts.
Thanks for the offer, @dlnarango. @judywelna has taken on Massachusetts (among several other states in New England) - perhaps one of you would be willing to choose a different state? Alternatively, doesn't hurt to have two pairs of eyes checking the same observations, or perhaps @judywelna would just as soon have one fewer state in her review area.
evan, if @dlnarango has a special interest in Massachusetts, I'd be glad to share (remember it's combined with CT at this point)....also fine with going forward with it...
Happy to help where needed @judywelna & @eraskin with MA or another new england state. I don't have a particular special interest in Massachusetts except that I recently moved up here.
@dlnarango, how about MA & RI? Here's the link, starting with today's date. Also, of you're willing, it would be great to have past observations for RI reviewed - that link is here. Let me know if you have any questions.
a question...should I delete my existing MA link? wondering, because it was mixed with CT...wanted to be sure CT is covered
Sounds great. I see both of the links you sent me are RI. How about I stick with RI and @judywelna , I'll search Massachusetts and help out occasionally with those records since that is a much bigger dataset.
@judywelna, you can stick with your existing links covering MA & CT.
@dlnarango, although RI shows up in the Where box, it is actually covering both (quirk of using custom URL searches like that). The second link (past observations) is limited to RI, as @judywelna has covered the backlog for MA.
Oh neat. Sounds good, thanks!
Anyone else having problems with the links above? The NY ones indicate that there are no matching records, even though I haven't gotten thru all the backlog and haven't check the up to date list in a week... I've also checked some of the other links and have gotten that there are no matching records... Is It Just Me?
My links (ME/NH, VT, CT/MA) seem to be working ok....
Seems to be OK for New Castle County, De.
@themez, it looks like almost all the past NY Lepidoptera records have been annotated. I get 49 observations using the "Past" link (all NY Leps posted prior to 2/17/19 lacking annotations) & 1.829 when I remove the annotation & project rules. Maybe someone else has been helping you out? What happens if you click the "Reviewed" check box at the top? Looks like the post-2/17/19 link is working correctly - are you having trouble with that one as well?
@eraskin I think it was my connection. I now get the same results. Weird. Thanks everyone!
So, I finished the NY backlog. I'm happy to review another state. Is anyone working on TN or MI? Or any state that needs some TLC...
Thanks, @themez! That's fantastic. Why don't you take a crack at TN? Here is a link to observations from before today and another for observations today & in the future.
for Bagworms where you can't see the actual caterpillar, should I annotate them as Larva or Pupa ?
Unless you can see it(the larva has emerged or the observer has torn open the bag), there's no way to know what stage it's in. I've been leaving those blank. Anybody else do anything different?
@jabrams_foc, good question. Like @ericwilliams, I just skip those and don't annotate them one way of the other.
Are you still taking volunteers? I would love to cover Louisiana if it is available.
@brmaldo, of course! We'd be grateful to have your help. Here is a link to LA Lepidoptera observations from before today, and here is the link for today & in the future. Let me know if you have any questions.
@eraskin Thanks! I did a few pages of observations and think I have it so far. If I have any questions I'll let you know!
OK, I just did all the Wisconsin ones to see how much of a task it is before I committed to taking this on. Managed to review a little over 10K observations in less than a week with a reasonable time spent and believe that added about 1.6K to the project. I'm assuming keeping up will be even easier than catching up so put me down as the Wisconsin Lep Larva Annotator. :D
Since SC is already taken, put me down for WV.
Thanks, @botanicaltreasures! Here is a link to WV Lepidoptera observations from before today, and here is the link for today & in the future. Let me know if you have any questions.
Thanks, @driftlessroots! Appreciate your help. Let me know if you'd like custom search URLs.
According to my list, 15 out of 38 states (and partial states, & D.C.) have been adopted! Here are the ones remaining as of 1/14/20: AL, AR, DE, FL, GA, IL, IN, IA, KS (eastern), MD, MI, MN, MS, MO, NE (eastern), NJ, ND (eastern), OH, OK (eastern), PA, SD (eastern), TX (eastern), DC
If anyone would like to claim one (or more), let me know. Some have much less activity than others.
Not to leave out Canada & Mexico - if anyone would like to adopt a Mexican state or Canadian province, let me know!
I've been chipping away at MN very slowly. I might as well officially take it. Maybe that will inspire me to chip faster.
So, a while ago I offered to take MI or TN. You created shortcuts saying they were for TN, but they are actually MI. I assumed it was a typo and never said anything. just wanted to let you know..happy to keep doing MI, but can switch if needed.
@eraskin I'm running across a number of leafmine observations. Not sure how to treat those if I can't see the larva. Same thing with galls.
@driftlessroots, thanks for adopting MN. Would you like custom search URLs?
As for leafmines & galls, I would not add the Larva annotation to those, but would mark them "Evidence of Organism." My policy generally is to only annotate observations in which I can clearly distinguish the larva itself. If you want to, you could add those observations to the Leafminers of North America and Galls of North America projects, respectively.
@themez, sorry about the mix-up, and thanks for working on MI! I will switch that on my spreadsheet (unless you would prefer TN).
Awesome, thanks, @botanicaltreasures! Here are the links for PA past and future.
@eraskin Since I kept coming across big caterpillar larva with little wasp cocoons or larva on them I just started https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/bus-passengers-parasitoid-wasps.
@botanicaltreasures, good idea! I think I have a couple of observations with Braconid wasp pupae, will see if I can dig them up.
@eraskin, great! All are welcome to contribute. So far I've seen more parasites on the sphinx moth caterpillars than any other group.
@eraskin I confess that PA is much too much for me to keep up with by myself. Also I'll admit to being sidetracked from annotating caterpillars because of working on the Bus Passengers project. Are you going to eventually turn your huge caterpillar project into an umbrella project broken out into states or provinces?
If you still need help with OH I would be willing to assist.
Thanks for your interest, @luna2077! Sorry it took me a while to get back to you. Ohio has not been "adopted" and it would be great to have your help. here is a link to un-annotated OH Lepidoptera observations from the past and here is a link for observations added today and in the future. Please let me know if you have any questions, and thanks!
Hi @eraskin - You're welcome! Should the links give the exact same results? Looks like they might be the same link. When I first opened them they both returned 2444 pages of results, after reviewing 15 pages of results they both still return the same amount (2426). That's ... a lot of pages but I have some extra time on my hands these days so why not do something useful with it?
My mistake, I have fixed the "future" link (now showing only 8 pages). Thanks for your help!
Just came across this project! Over the winter I've been adding life stage annotations to all lep observations in Manitoba and am about 3/4's done. I've usually been adding life stage annotations to galls and leaf mines, but see that that's not recommended - not sure I'll go back and change the ones I've done.
Also, is there a recommended field for adding host plant info?
Glad to have you, @friesen5000! I think I usually use the "Insect Host Plant" or "Host Plant ID" field, but haven't been particularly consistent with that. For galls & mines do you also mark as "evidence of organism"? I think that would be the way to go, and then perhaps I could systematically exclude those so that the project collects only observations of caterpillars themselves.
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