HOW TO IDENTIFY THINGS
Select a guide from above, specify some characters using the boxes in the form that appears, and then click "identify."
After results appear on the left, click "simplify," and repeat clicking boxes, "identify," & "simplify" until you complete your identification.
First time users should select a guide and then click on the "Help"
link that appears at the top right for details on how to use.
About IDnature guides
IDnature guides are run by 20q identification software developed by The Polistes Corporation.
This software presents text, line drawings, and photographs in Web forms to help
you identify things. It should work on all computers running Internet Explorer 4, Mozilla 1.0.2, and Netscape 6.
It was first used by specialists to identify tropical wasps and beetles.
We are now building guides for widespead use at the 4th grade level and above.
Ultimately, we hope that super-friendly guides to species will be available for all living things.
Partners
The Missouri Botanical Gardens and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
are helping to develop plant guides, focused first on wildflowers, trees, and seeds.
In southern Africa, taxonomists associated with SAFRINET and South Africa's Agricultural Research Council
are building guides to agricultural pests, invasive species, and other groups of organisms.
The USGS Biological Resources Division,
the National Biological Information Infrastructure, and the US Department of Agriculture
are funding and helping with the bee and other guides.
CONABIO in Mexico is funding a guide to weeds of Mexico.
Plans
We plan to start ant, bird, caterpillar, fish, frog, mammal, mosquito, mushroom,
salamander, shell, and spider guides as soon as resources permit.
For more details on our organizational structure and goals,
including our additional partners and plans, please see The Polistes Foundation's
business plan.
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Visual Characters
Whenever possible we intend to present characters and their states visually.
The thumb-nail image on the left, for example, shows a wasp with an occipital carina.
Individuals who wish to obtain more information about this character, specimen,
or image can click on the image.
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How it works
20q presents you with identification characters and states in the form of images and text.
After comparing alternate character states with the specimen
being identified, users submit information
to our Web server using html forms. The server then searches its database of character-states
based on the information submitted. It narrows down the taxa and
character-states that remain to be considered and presents recommendations of
what to look at next to the user.
This interaction is iterative.
If all goes well, it ends when the user identifies the specimen.
Such interactive keys are not dichotomous and are not linear. They allow users to examine characters
with multiple states and
and specify characters in any order, skipping those that they can't answer for whatever reason.
The concept -- a game
20q is modelled after the games "20 Questions" and "Animal."
In these games one player thinks of a thing, usually an animal,
and then the other players ask questions and try to name the thing.
The winner is the player who first correctly names the thing.
In the case of 20 Questions, a limit of 20 questions is imposed,
after which the player who is answering the questions wins,
tells the thing, and has another turn.
Ultimately, we hope that our Web site will play 20 Questions with you,
both for fun and to help you identify and learn about animals, plants,
insects, rocks, and wonderful things that are yet to be discovered.
We hope that through this process you will add information to our database
on your observations and knowledge of things that you can identify.
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