Seriously, what do I do with this
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Embyrr922
What do I do?
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dms246
moderator
We just have to guess when we get images like this.
I know - outright guessing feels bad. But one of the scientists has written a blog post explaining why they haven't given us a "I haven't a clue!" button, and how even outright guesses are useful, when collated with other people's outright guesses. It really is worth reading - I feel a lot better about guessing on images like this one after reading the post:
http://blog.snapshotserengeti.org/2012/12/14/we-need-an-i-dont-know-button/
Hope that helps you with future images like this! 😃
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tirralirra
Grants Gazelle is as good a guess as any.... go for it!
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dms246
moderator
I just thought - another thing you can do, if it makes you feel any better about guessing, is make your best guess, and then tag the image with the tag "unknown". I've seen some others using that tag. Then it'll be up to the scientists whether or not to use that tag to track down particularly hard to identify images.
Just to expand a little on my previous comment above - something the blog post pointed out is that even when we make guesses based on very little information, we actually still provide information. This is particularly true when our guess is viewed alongside all the other guesses. With this image, for example - all the guesses are going to point to a creature that is tan/pale red/light brown in colour. That in itself narrows down what it might be without a scientist ever having to look at the image, even if everyone picks a different creature with that colouring. The guesses are also unlikely to include creatures with hide or feathers rather than fur or hair, and will also exclude animals with sharply patterned fur (such as cheetahs, for example). So, again, we're helping narrow down the possibilities. If a scientist was particularly interested in the distribution of elephants, or leopards, for example, they would be able to exclude this image from the extracted dataset for that animal, without ever having to check it visually.
Bottom line is that even a guess, based on the minimal information available in the image, is going to convey some information, and that is absolutely going to be of use to the scientists. So, as tirralirra said... go for it! 😃
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