Search functionality in iNaturalist

Given that this is an unconventional project, the search functions of the site are limited for finding observations that include Swiss army knives.

Initially, searching "knife" under the "Find Suitable Observations" link on the project page yielded good results. The URL looks like this: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?not_in_project=swiss-army-knives-of-inaturalist&q=knife

However, I have just about exhausted that method of search, as only a small percentage of results are what I'm looking for. For one, there are many other knives featured in observations, but also several species get included (knife wrasse, knife-leaved liveforever, et cetera). Confounding that even further, there are several locations in North America with 'knife' in the name (Dull Knife, Knife Creek, et cetera). I have attempted to add URL modifiers to exclude these taxa and locations, but it is difficult to account for everything, and it seems that no matter how I try, some locations get through.

Recently, I've found that the best way to search is by a pure visual survey. I first open the about page for a given taxa, then click 'View More' to look at all the photos for that observation. Then I scan through as quickly as I can and open any photos I see with SAKs. What is nice about the browse photos feature is that you can look at all photos in an observation at once. Normally in search results, you only get the first photo.

One downside is that the URL modifier "&not_in_project=swiss-army-knives-of-inaturalist" does not seem to work in the photo browser.

I have noticed that a majority of the observations featuring Swiss army knives are of mammal tracks and scat, so I started there. The filters allow for some fine-tuning, which is immensely helpful. When I find an observation with a Swiss army knife, I make sure to browse through that user's other observations, in case they make a habit of using SAKs as a scale reference. That often can yield a ton more observations for the project.

I have worked through just about all mammals, and need to move on to other taxa. Birds, mushrooms, and insects have some SAKs featured, but not as many. Virtually no marine observations feature SAKs. It seems that tracks usually need a scale and don't move away like animals would, so there are a lot more photos with SAKs featured.

Posted on September 30, 2024 04:26 PM by ccoslor