To my great surprise, I just realised it's been more than two and a half years since I last wrote a journal post for this project! Very lax of me, and apologies to all for the lack of more regular updates.

The project has been surging along, and we now have more than 7,000 observations, which is fantastic to see. We also recently surpassed 2,000 project members, thanks in part to some regular mentions of the project in recent iNat blog posts (eg observation of the week).

So for all the newer members, I'll run through the project rules again:

1 . Any observations you add must be the first photograph(s) of that species anywhere. If an observation is the first one for that species to be uploaded to iNat, but other photos of that species from an earlier point in time already exist anywhere elsewhere online/in print, then that observation should not be added to the project. This is the biggest source of observations that I have to remove from the project. So your observation must be both the first photograph of that species on iNat and also the first anywhere.

If you encounter an observation of a species that is older than one already in the project, add it, but please message me so I can remove the one that no longer qualifies as oldest.

2 . Your photograph must be of a living individual. A number of observations have been added that depict things like empty mollusc shells, dead fishes, pinned insects, etc. Whilst these are of course valuable observation, they are not eligible for the project.

3 . If the male and female of a species are sexually dimorphic, then both are valid to be added to the project. So too if a species has distinct life stages (eg caterpillar/chrysalis/butterfly), they are all valid to be separately added to the project (assuming the other rules apply). Ditto for plants; if one observation shows the first ever photos of flowers, and another the first ever of fruits, they are both ok to add to the project. Please make sure, however, that the first two rules are also followed in these cases.

The project is very much self-sustaining now, with users adding observations to it every day, and there are a number of users in particular who have added many IDs and/or added records to the project, so huge thanks to everyone involved. I'd like to especially highlight the recent efforts of @borisb, who has contributed tremendously (IDing and adding) in the world of beetles and has been a very vocal advocate for the project, letting users know each time he adds one of their observations.

In some great news, the short paper put together by @atronox, @neontetraploid, @gcwarbler and myself has now been accepted and published in the Journal of Insect Conservation. You can check it out at https://rdcu.be/cylip.

Since my last update back in June, we've continued to have more and more members join the project, with 932 at the time of writing, so it's great to see so many enthusiastic people involved.

As usual, I'll also take this opportunity to reiterate the project rules/criteria.

1. Please do not add photographs of dead specimens to the project. Often, observations depicting things such as dead marine species at fish markets or empty snail shells will get uploaded to the project. Whilst these are certainly cool records, especially when they are indeed the first known photos of those species, they fall outside the scope of this project, and I will remove them.
2. Please only add observations when the photographs are the first known photos anywhere, not just the first ones to be uploaded to iNat. I try to vet all/as many observations that come into the project as I can, but inevitably some slip under the radar and I miss them. So if you think you have a suitable observation, and you're not 100% sure it's the first known photo, spend a bit of time looking through google images, GBIF, online databases, etc., to see if photos already exist and pre-date yours.

Two other notes:
'First known' photographs does not equal 'first time I've seen this species'!! I regularly remove observations from the project where hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of other observations of that species have already been uploaded to iNat, let alone to other databases and sites online.

It's ok to post the first known photograph(s) of e.g. the male of a species, even when the female has been well-documented previously, and vice versa. Ditto for life stages of things like insects. This was one of the reasons why I named the project "....living specimens" rather than "...living species". However, if you do intend to upload the first photo of a male/female, certain life stage, please explicitly note somewhere in that observation, whether in a comment, the description, etc., that this is the case. There are many species for which I remove observations from the project due to pre-existing observations; in some of these cases, it may be a first-time photograph of a male or female, which is suitable for the project, but the observation in question has no annotations, information, or explanations of any kind that this is the case, so please include this so your observation doesn't get booted out!

Also, if you're uploading an observation that is only ID'ed to genus, family etc., because it's an undescribed species, please note that explicitly somewhere in the observation as well. Without this information, it's really difficult/impossible for me to assess whether your observation should be retained or kicked out of the project, and in most cases I will remove it if I am unsure.

Just wanted to say a warm welcome to all the new project members; with the project currently sitting under 'Featured' on the project page, we've had almost 130 new users join in just a month and a half!

Of course, with more members have come more observations, and amazing photographs continue to flood in. However, there have been quite a lot of observations added to the project that don't fit the requirements. Not a huge deal, but thought I'd take this opportunity just to clarify the project's scope for new members.

1. Any observations you add must be the first photograph(s) of that species anywhere. If an observation is the first one for that species to be uploaded to iNat, but other photos of that species from an earlier point in time already exist elsewhere online/in print, then that observation should not be added to the project. This is the biggest source of observations that I have to remove from the project. So your observation must be the first photograph of that species on iNat and also the first anywhere.
2. Your photograph must be of a living individual. A number of observations have been added that depict things like empty mollusc shells, dead fishes, pinned insects, etc. These are not eligible for the project.

Feel free to ask any questions if you're unsure about the project. I look forward to seeing your awesome observations :)

Just over a year after the project's inception, we have now hit 2000 observations as of this morning! An awesome achievement with over 560 contributors thus far. One week ago we also hit 200 project members, with that number now at 203.

Some notable 'newcomers' (relative to my last journal posts) include @gernotkunz's amazing macro shots of mostly European hoppers, @ellurasanctuary's comprehensive image sets of South Australian insects, and @matthew_connors' wide array of obscure inverts from tropical Queensland and Victoria.

In some exciting news, myself, @atronox, @neontetraploid and @gcwarbler recently wrote a short paper on the butterfly observations submitted to the project; it's currently in review in Journal of Insect Conservation, so fingers crossed that one gets through!

Also a gentle reminder to people that the project is for the first photos of living specimens anywhere, not just the first photos of said species to be uploaded to iNat.

In just four and a half months, 1000 observations have been contributed to the project by 332 different observers, an awesome achievement highlighting the incredible value of iNaturalist as an ecological database. We also recently hit 100 project members (currently 107).

I have to admit that checking the project has become a daily ritual for me when I wake up; I'm always keen to see the amazing new species that people have uploaded each day, and I'm sure the same is true for a lot of you. What I think impresses me the most is the incredible geographic spread of observations, with records from every continent including Antarctica!

The 1000th observation for the project was this amazing eyeless (!) sole, photographed by @cclborneo in Malaysia.

Hi all,

I wanted say a huge thanks to everyone who's contributed to the project so far. As of writing we have almost 550 observations from 208 users, an amazing compilation given the project has only been live for under a month.

Currently, the top three contributors are @cclborneo, @dustaway and @talgar-t64, each with their own unique observations.

Chien Lee's observations are mostly from Borneo, and cover an outstanding range of taxa including critically endangered Nepenthes, this stunning tarantula and this surreal snake. Also a highlight is this frog, the first sighting of this species since the type collected in 1875.

Nicholas John Fisher's observations are from eastern Australia near the Queensland/New South Wales border and mostly cover tricky to spot moths that take a lot of patience to ID. Gracillaridae, Oecophoridae and Geometridae are among the families covered.

Anatoliy Ozernoy's observations are all spiders from eastern Kazakhstan, and include amazing macro shots of jumping spiders, lynx spiders and crab spiders.

Here's to the next 500 observations!