COLOMBO The first time that scientists described the beautiful metallic-green dragonfly that they would later call Flint’s cruiser was in 1970. Based on a single dead male specimen, they named the species Macromia flinti, endemic to Sri Lanka. And then, for the next half century, they never saw another one. No flash of iridescent […]
It may be a straw man argument to suggest a distinction between an amateur and professional naturalist (a word that may still mean something). “Natural history” was once like history itself in a spectrum from archaeologists, museum curators and trained historians to best-selling if sometimes questionable historical aficionados. A disjunction between amateur and professional naturalists […]
Sri Lanka’s budding biologists get their science on with iNaturalist
by Malaka Rodrigo on 11 March 2021
iNaturalist, a global citizen science platform where users collaborate to identify uploaded photos of fauna and flora, saw its observations from Sri Lanka hit the 50,000 mark, the second-highest in South Asia and 14th in Asia.
Sri Lanka’s first observation was uploaded in 2011, but it was only in the past two years that a significant increase in observations were recorded, with more young naturalists getting involved in the global initiative.
The country’s iNaturalist observations have already led to the identification of a range of overlooked species, proving the tool’s successful use in processing field observations.