We are using iNaturalist for photo submissions for the Ohio Dragonfly Survey.
To submit observations, you first need to sign in. If you have not already joined the Ohio Dragonfly Survey project yet, do so now before uploading photos. You need to join the project before you can submit observations to our project.
Then, go to https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/upload to upload photos.
It should look like the above for the new uploader. There are a few older uploaders available, but iNaturalist is moving towards this one.
From here you click on choose photos and select the observations you would like to submit. Once you click OK it should upload your photos and look something like below.
Here you see the main batch upload page where you can individually or batch update observation fields.
You can then select the organism name by typing either the scientific or common name into the species name field. Note that common names can vary by region and occasionally lead to mix-ups, so proceed with caution. Only ID as low as you are confident.
The date is automatically extracted from the meta-data in you phone or camera. Sometimes that metadata is off, so you can still edit to get the right date.
Then you can edit the location with either the batch edit function for editing many observations at once or edit each individually.
To batch edit multiple observations, you need to click on each of the observations or use the select all option.
Then you click on the location box and a map pops up.
In the search for location box, you can put in the address or general location to get you close to where you want.
I took the photo of the Scorpionfly near a gas station at the OARDC, so I am using the OARDC to get close. I like the visuals of the satellite imagry, so I can more fine tune my location.
Doesn’t that look better? Much easier to find the pond or other building. From here I drag the ring to the exact location that I know I got the specimen. If you only know you got it within a park, then you can expand the accuracy ring to include the entire park. For the scorpionfly, I know I found it on a light post on the corner of the gas station, so I will select that.
Note that the Accuracy in meters is now much smaller, indicating that we are pretty confident with this particular location. Once we are happy, click save to keep the location.
Next, we are going to go back to our observations and combine, edit, or delete them.
You can delete an entire observation by hovering over the entire right corner.
If the two (or more) photos are actually of the same specimen, you can combine them by dragging one observation and dropping it onto another.
Sometimes, extra photos accidentally get added or dropped onto another observation, so you can either use the inner X to remove the photo or drag it out of your observation.
Once you have all of the edits to the details for each observation, you can work on adding your photos to projects. If it is a Dragonfly or Damselfly (Odonata) found in Ohio you can add it to the Ohio Dragonfly Survey project. You need to join the project before you can submit observations.
Here you can see I am a member of several projects. Since this is not a dragonfly, I will not add it to the Ohio Dragonfly Survey, but I will add it to the Ohio BioBlitz.
Note: You can edit the location information to choose how much site information you reveal. If you think you might have a threatened or endangered species, please choose Location is Obscured or Private. If you think you have found a Hine’s Emerald, please contact MaLisa Spring and Bob Glotzhober immediately as this is a federally endangered species. You can also choose these options if you want to submit observations from your own backyard and do not want others to know where you live.
Finally, once you are done with everything, you click submit observations up in the right hand corner.
After that, you get redirected to your observations page where you can look at and edit individual observations.
Notifications appear in the upper right hand corner next to the speech bubble. They turn red when there are new notifications with the number of new notifications next to the icon. Direct messages are to the left.
Still have questions about submitting observations to the Ohio Dragonfly Survey via iNaturalist? Feel free to reach out to MaLisa Spring at spring.99@osu.edu and she will do her best to answer your questions.