I Have a Tricorder

I’m a huge fan of Star Trek, especially The Next Generation. I used to watch episodes live when I was a kid, and I was always amazed at all the technology and how it seemed like magic. What’s even more amazing is that much of that far-future electro-wizardry now exists just a few decades later, at least in function. If you’d told me back then that I’d carry a device in my pocket that could identify any plant or bird, I wouldn’t have believed you. But here I am, using exactly that.

It may not run a molecular analysis, but with apps like Merlin I can semi-confidently identify the song of any bird I hear singing. And with iNaturalist I can submit photos to a worldwide network of expert naturalists to identify any plant, animal, mushroom, bird, slug, bug, or snail that I can get a semi-decent photo of.

What’s especially great about iNaturalist is that there is no “gate” beyond making an account. I’ve had professional herpetologists identify turtles for me, museum curators identify plants, and a huge number of ridiculously over-qualified experts share their knowledge with me. You can start with a grainy cell phone picture and tag it “some sort of tree, I think,” and an army of volunteer internet sleuths (including a shockingly large percentage of real scientists) will usually jump in and tell you exactly what you have.

In addition to being a great way to learn about the world around you, it’s a lot of fun. I once accidentally stirred up serious debate over whether a photo I shared was of a common sunfish or a much rarer, more exciting sunfish-pumpkinseed hybrid. It was definitively determined to be the hybrid by someone with a PhD in Fisheries and Wildlife who had written their dissertation, in part, on this exact hybridization. It all started because I saw a cool fish on a hike and got a picture of it.