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 provided with the snake's geographical origin. Nevertheless, participants showed great enthusiasm and engagement, and our study provides evidence that innovative citizen science/crowdsourcing approaches can play significant roles in training and building capacity. Although identification by an expert familiar with the local snake fauna will always be the gold standard, we suggest that healthcare workers, clinicians, epidemiologists and other parties interested in snakebite could become more connected to these communities, and that professional herpetologists and skilled avocational snake enthusiasts could organize ways to help connect medical professionals to crowdsourcing platforms. Involving skilled avocational snake enthusiasts in decision making could build the capacity of healthcare workers to identify snakes more quickly, specifically and accurately, and ultimately improve snakebite treatment data and outcomes.
Highlights
Species identification is challenging due to the complexity and vastness of biodiversity
We used the citizen science platform developed by the Citizen Science Center Zurich and Citizen Cyberlab to host a snake identification online challenge which participants could play as a game [56]
As our results show that variation in participant knowledge is significant, such a vetting process would be critical for building the trust of 16 medical professionals in any crowdsourced online snake identification platform
Summary
Species identification is challenging due to the complexity and vastness of biodiversity Species misidentification introduces both false-positive and false-negative errors into biological datasets spanning taxa from mammals [1,2,3] and birds [4] to fishes [5], invertebrates and plants [6]. The number of described species of snakes is growing rapidly, more than 3800 species globally with approximately 30 new species described every year since the turn of the century, ca 20% of which are potentially dangerous to humans [15] This renaissance in new species discovery has been brought about through globalization, digitization of museum collections, increased exploration of previously neglected areas, and the integrated use of morphological and molecular techniques for species delimitation [16]. Snake species identification is complicated by geographical and ontogenetic variation in morphology and colour pattern, and the fact that many people are frightened of snakes and have not had much exposure to them
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