Fun stories on the "official blog" for iNaturalist. I was searching for iNaturalist outing ideas and found this:
http://inaturalist.tumblr.com/

The current lead story is about how a few people discovered what turned out to be quite a find.

My favorite quote from the story - " iNaturalist at its best: experienced novice loops in expert who loops in the expert who then helps us learn about our find and gets info she will use in her research. And it was fun and exciting for all."

"The iNaturalist community made international headlines a few weeks ago after the first hoodwinker sunfish (Mola tecta) seen in North America was shared and then identified via iNaturalist and some dedicated participants."

"Ralph Foster: If it hadn’t been for Tom and Jessica’s willingness to revisit and examine the specimen we would not have known with certainty that this was, indeed, Mola tecta.
Jessica Nielsen: We were all thrilled to hear the news. Mola tecta was just recently discovered in 2017 (by Marianne and her research team) so there is still so much to learn about this species. I’m so glad that we could help these researchers make the final definitive ID.
Tom Turner: iNaturalist at its best: experienced novice loops in expert who loops in the expert who then helps us learn about our find and gets info she will use in her research. And it was fun and exciting for all.
Marianne Nyegaard: Ralph Foster also alerted the University of California, who did a beach dissection and collected a large number of samples. Tissue samples will soon be on the way from California to my sister’s lab in Denmark, where I do all my sunfish genetics.
So, within 24 hours after I had first been made aware of this stranding we had confirmed the ID. I just love iNaturalist and am continuously amazed by how much fun it is to “meet” passionate people all over the world"

Enjoy!
Valerie

Posted on March 28, 2019 04:21 AM by vadalton