Crowdsourcing snake identification with online communities of professional herpetologists and avocational snake enthusiasts.

ABSTRACT: Species identification can be challenging for biologists, healthcare practitioners and members of the general public. Snakes are no exception, and the potential medical consequences of venomous snake misidentification can be significant. Here, we collected data on identification of 100 snake species by building a week-long online citizen science challenge which attracted more than 1000 participants from around the world. We show that a large community including both professional herpetologists and skilled avocational snake enthusiasts with the potential to quickly (less than 2 min) and accurately (69-90%; see text) identify snakes is active online around the clock, but that only a small fraction of community members are proficient at identifying snakes to the species level, even when provi

SUBMITTER: Durso AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7890515 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature