An Interview with Thomas Mesaglio (@thebeachcomber)

Last month I made my first (and hopefully not last) visit to Australia, and was lucky enough to have Thomas Mesaglio (@thebeachcomber) and his family show me the incredible flora and fauna of the Sydney area. I’ve known Thomas from his time as a moderator on the iNaturalist Forum, and he’s contributed to iNat in so many ways. He’s added tens of thousands of observations, hundreds of thousands of identifications, serves as a site curator and forum moderator, and also helps organize the Sydney City Nature Challenge. 

Thomas and another iNat user Corey T. Callaghan (@coreytcallaghan) have worked on several papers using iNat data over the last few years and their most recent, “The benefits of contributing to the citizen science platform iNaturalist as an identifier,” (it’s open access) had just been published when I was in Australia. 

So after a wonderful day naturalizing with Sydney-based iNatters @sofiazed1, @cynthia_c, @jennyvzo, and @eamonn_c, Thomas was generous enough to talk about himself, iNat, and that paper with me. Here’s the video:





- two other papers Thomas and Corey have co-authored are “An overview of the history, current contributions and future outlook of iNaturalist in Australia” and “Rapidly mapping fire effects on biodiversity at a large-scale using citizen science”.

- many, many, iNat users contributed to “The benefits of contributing to the citizen science platform iNaturalist as an identifier,” please check out the paper to see the entire list. 

- Thomas’s book “Seashells of North Haven Beach” is available here.

- take a look at iNat’s Identifier Profiles to learn a bit more about some of iNat’s top identifiers.

Posted on 31 de dezembro de 2022, 11:00 PM by tiwane tiwane

Comentários

Great interview, well done!

Publicado por nicklambert mais de 1 ano antes

Congrats!

Publicado por simono mais de 1 ano antes

Wonderful, Thomas!
This is what it's all about, curiosity, connectedness, possibility.
And we need more identifiers...if one is a prolific poster, then try and give back with IDs, using 'follow taxon' functions at least.
And donate if you can!

Publicado por dustaway mais de 1 ano antes

Great to put a face to the name. Thanks for all your IDs, thebeachcomber.

Amazing and appropriate shirt/top! That should become the iNat uniform so we can recognise each other when out observing.

Publicado por vireyajacquard mais de 1 ano antes

Thomas! My esteemed co-author*! I'm delighted to "see" you in person and hear your story....Sounds a lot like me except substitute the beaches of Southern California in the 1950s and 1960s in place of your childhood setting. Thank you for all your efforts.

*https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354807768_'First_Known_Photographs_of_Living_Specimens'_the_power_of_iNaturalist_for_recording_rare_tropical_butterflies

Publicado por gcwarbler mais de 1 ano antes

Congratulation

Publicado por jungle_johnny mais de 1 ano antes

Wonderful! What an inspiring and knowledgeable interview, congrats Thomas!

Publicado por rinaturalist mais de 1 ano antes

Fantastic video! Thomas, I've watched several of the Great Southern Bioblitz videos and have really been inspired by how you use iNaturalist. It was great hearing your story about beachcombing and how you ended up getting into iNaturalist.

That article Corey and you wrote is fantastic and I love how the video summed it. Corey is now in Florida and I am looking forward to meeting him sometime :-)

Thanks for all you do for the iNaturalist community and to inspire others to realize how amazing the natural world is!!

Publicado por joemdo mais de 1 ano antes

Such an inspirational interview!

Publicado por philwarb mais de 1 ano antes

Great interview Thomas. I agree that the iNaturalist platform sparks interest in a lot of different fields and is a great learning tool regards Graeme

Publicado por gizz mais de 1 ano antes

You're cool, Thomas!

Publicado por apseregin mais de 1 ano antes

👍

Publicado por huttonia mais de 1 ano antes

bravo

Publicado por raptor_huss3 mais de 1 ano antes

Nice guy, nice interview!

Publicado por guillermofunes mais de 1 ano antes

Awesome stuff

Publicado por jtch mais de 1 ano antes

Yay Thomas!!! Congratulations all round. And Thank You!

Publicado por susanhewitt mais de 1 ano antes

Also, nice outfit Thomas! :)

Publicado por diegoalmendras mais de 1 ano antes

Great video, Thomas. It's outstanding work you're doing!

Publicado por spyne mais de 1 ano antes

Excellent. And, yes, I love his shirt as well @diegoalmendras

Publicado por craig-r mais de 1 ano antes

Great interview and also the work done on iNaturalist. I don't normally have time to watch these sorts of things but have heard of the legend so peeked at the story behind it.

Publicado por reiner mais de 1 ano antes

Great interview! Really shows the importance of iNat.

Publicado por oceanicadventures mais de 1 ano antes

thank you, Thomas.
Really liked the 7 reasons.
I'm an iNaturalist since 2 weeks, going through my data and photos of the Zanzibar Archipelago collected within the last 30 years. Suddenly it all makes sense, I found an outlet, iNaturalist is a VERY interested and cooperating community.
Thank you, Thomas
and thanks to all you iNaturalists!
Yusuf

Publicado por yusufzanzibar mais de 1 ano antes

Thank you for all you do Thomas, and for speaking so eloquently about what brings us together here!

Publicado por jdmore mais de 1 ano antes

Well done Thomas! 🥳

Publicado por thelosthuman mais de 1 ano antes

I'm already a fairly active identifier (I'm closing in on 100,000 IDs), but this interview has inspired me to do even more - thanks!

Publicado por lynnharper mais de 1 ano antes

Great video. Many thanks for sharing

Publicado por karimhaddad mais de 1 ano antes

Fantastic work & very important contributions Thomas! I'll cite your papers when promoting citizen science.

Publicado por iranah mais de 1 ano antes

Great interview! Thanks for amazing leadership of Sydney/Australia citizen science!

Publicado por biniek-io mais de 1 ano antes

Hey Thomas, that's awesome thanks for giving me a bit more of an understanding from an expert's point of view! Would love to go out for an explore with you next time I'm in Sydney...

Publicado por bridgetteaussiemacro mais de 1 ano antes

Great interview! Always appreciate hearing iNat contributors speak on what iNat means to them.

Publicado por kemper mais de 1 ano antes

Brilliant! I’ve seen your name pop up as an identifier on so many different observations, and it is great to put a face to it! Love your work, love your attitude and love your shirt!

Publicado por lisa_bennett mais de 1 ano antes

I love that shirt as well! It shows so many different arthropods on it! Reminds me of a shirt Robert Whyte wore in a photo of him in A Field Guide to Spiders of Australia.

Publicado por huttonia mais de 1 ano antes

thanks all for the kind words, and for making iNat such a great place :)
if any of you find yourselves in Sydney, flick me a message and I'd love to show you around

Publicado por thebeachcomber mais de 1 ano antes

@thebeachcomber
I would just like to say thank you for all the flags you helped me out with :-)

Publicado por huttonia mais de 1 ano antes

@karenweaving62 , Great interview Thomas showcasing some of the mutual benefits of iNaturalist/Citizen Science coming together and creating, contributing to Quality Research, useful data, sharing knowledges we each bring to the platform/community.
I also thought your articles with Corey T Callaghan, 2020 about Contributions and future outlook of iNaturalist in Australia, was well presented and written.
Always a pleasure to meet fellow iNaturalists virtually and in person as occasions permit.
Thank you for your great efforts, keep up the good work.Congratulations all round well done 🙂👏

Publicado por karenweaving62 mais de 1 ano antes

Wonderful! Thank you Thomas and Tony.

Publicado por vavilovian_mimic mais de 1 ano antes

Excellent interview! Now I know who I'll be contacting if I visit Australia! ;-)

Publicado por beschwar mais de 1 ano antes

great project, it sounds wonderful. I am inspired by your work!!

Publicado por isadoraisadorable mais de 1 ano antes

ah, it was time to look in the dictionary what a "beachcomber" is and it turned out it is something different than a "Zeekomkommer" (Sea cucumbers are echinoderms from the class Holothuroidea)

Publicado por ahospers mais de 1 ano antes

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