I've always been a little reticent to try any of the apps that claim to recognize species based on scanning with a smartphone camera. There are so many species that can be similar visually that I never thought an app could discern with any reliability, which has prejudiced me to assume that any ID from an app would just be a guess, and would lead users to not learn the defining characteristics of different species to learn on my own. My children are constantly asking me what different individuals are when we are out in nature, and there are many groups that I have a really good handle on; trees and grasses, birds, most of the more common mushrooms, fish, and mammals, along with enough reptiles to get me by. But smartphones and technology have come a long way recently. My iPhone scans my face everytime I pick it up, and is able to identify my face as a security measure to unlock, and compensates for sunglasses, and even was able to adapt to me shaving my beard without being reset (facemasks in the COVID-19 environment we're living in prove a step too far).
I have used the iNaturalist website for years to report interesting sightings of unique species, and check for real time range reports of different species. I recently learned they have release a scanning app to identify to species with a quick scan of the camera. This app is called Seek by iNaturalist, and I downloaded it from the Apple App Store on my iPhone 11.
I told my oldest son about my desire to test out the app with a quick walk around our neighborhood, and he was dressed with his water bottle ready to head out before I finished the sentence. It did not take long for him to pick the first species to test. We have a small lotus pond on the front porch with a ornamental lily, and some small golden shiners in it to control mosquito larva. We also tossed in a few aquatic snails that we had collected out of a drainage ditch. They have been multiplying rapidly, and take care of excess algae growth on the surface of the container. I've never studied mollusks, or had much interest in gastropods, so when he suggested using the Seek app on our snails I was genuinely intrigued, as I didn't know what species our snail are.
The app quickly identified to gastropoda, which I wasn't terribly surprised by, but after we flipped the snail over once, a confirmed ID screen popped up. We have Marsh Ramshorns (Planorbella trivolvis) in our lily garden!
Encouraged by this early success we took off through the neighborhood, and were able to ID twenty-one other species through the app. I quickly learned that plants with unique leaves are the easiest for it to ID, japanese maples and virginia creeper were no problem. Other species such as our dogwoods, oaks, azaleas, and several shrubs were more difficult, as it could only ID them to dicot level. This was still useful for our walk, as it gave me a great opportunity to explain to my son what the difference between monocots and dicots are, and he was able to make that determination on future plants without the app. I was surprised by its ability to ID our lawn grass as St. Augustine almost instantly when I pointed at it.
Flowers were also a great ID characteristic for the app. I've never been terrible strong on exotic ornamentals, so we went to the butterfly garden one of our neighbors planted, and it got most of them quickly.
Animals were more difficult to use the photo scan on, we unsuccessfully tried to test the app on a couple of squirrels, and several insects, but never got an ID to genus or lower. Likewise with two species of mushroom. Still, the info provided was a good starting point to look to additional resources for better ID. I did coerce the app into one incorrect ID. We found a bluejay feather on the ground, and the app labeled it as a Eurasian Jay, which seems extremely unlikely to find in a neighborhood in Memphis, TN.
I was impressed overall with the app, and looking forward to using it as another tool to help narrow down the search for unknown species.
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