Record fields #
This topic describes the most important fields of the record form and their meaning in ENTOMONE.
Species, family and plant #
Species describes the identification of the record. In the form you can use the local dictionary and iNaturalist suggestions. Family helps organise records and galleries, and plant is especially important for breeding and for publication to iNaturalist.
The host plant should come from the plant dictionary, if known. For breeding it can be used in the iNaturalist comment in the format ex <plant>.
Number of individuals #
Choose how the number of individuals is determined:
| Count type | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Exact | Enter a positive whole number of counted individuals. |
| Estimated | Enter an estimate; the record displays “about”, for example “about 200”. |
| Many | Many individuals were observed, without a numeric count. |
| Not determined | The number is unknown, for example when observing only an anthill. |
For Many and Not determined, the numeric input is disabled. An absent count means neither zero nor one individual. Do not enter 1 to represent an entire flock, anthill or nest. Describe it in the existing Notes field, for example “one active anthill”. There is no additional description field.
Summaries distinguish exact counts, estimates and observations without numeric counts. Copying and data exchange preserve the count type. Existing positive counts are treated as exact; the application cannot infer whether a historical 1 represented a group.
Publishing to iNaturalist does not send the count or append it to the description automatically. Existing Notes are sent; missing counts do not need to be replaced with 1.
Observation quantity and the number of printed labels are separate values. For Exact, the label generator suggests one label per individual (up to 999 in one setting). For other count types, it suggests one label; changing label copies does not change the observation.
| Location | Quantity support |
|---|---|
| Editor, photo entry, Field Notebook, multiple photos, species batch | All four states; a batch shares the value across its species. |
| Copying, CSV and ZIP | Preserve both number and count type. |
| Cards, maps, online/offline reports, statistics | Readable state; separate exact and estimated totals. |
| iNaturalist | Quantity is not sent; imports without a count use Not determined. |
Sex #
You choose sex with buttons:
- Unspecified,
- Male,
- Female.
Unspecified is the safe choice when you are not sure, or when the record concerns a trace, a larva, breeding material, or a photo where sex is not visible.
Observation type #
In the current model, the area previously described as Observation type has two meanings:
- Record type: Record or Note,
- Acquisition source: Nature or Breeding.
Record is a normal observation or specimen entry. It can have a species, date, site, media and can be prepared for a report, export or publication. Note is a separate field-entry type: it requires content, a date and valid GPS, while species, photo and site are optional. It is not a normal iNaturalist publication candidate.
Acquisition source clarifies the record:
- Nature - the record comes from a field observation or material collected directly in nature,
- Breeding - the record concerns material or a specimen obtained in breeding.
The most common combinations are Record + Nature, Record + Breeding and Note. Details are in Record types.
Life stage #
The Life stage field in the record editor and record card describes the observed developmental stage: adult, larva, pupa or eggs. The default is adult, with the tooltip “Adult insect - imago”. The stage does not specify specimen quantity; use the quantity field for that.
Life stage is independent of acquisition source. A larva observed in the field can have the Nature source. If you take it into breeding and obtain an adult, change the source to Breeding, retain the material collection date and enter the date the adult was obtained. You can retain larva as the stage of the original observation and add photos of the adult.
In the search form, Life stage is below acquisition source. The default All life stages does not restrict results. This filter is independent of other selections. The selected stage appears among the active search conditions and is retained when returning to the form.
Observer #
Observer means the author of the record. It is usually filled in based on the logged-in user. In mobile field mode the observer comes from your session, so you do not have to select it in the field.
Date #
For the Nature source, the date means the observation date. For the Breeding source, the record date can mean the date the specimen was obtained, but for publication to iNaturalist the material collection date matters, usually resulting from a site visit. For Note, the date means the date of the entry or the event you are describing.
GPS and accuracy #
The record's GPS can come from the photo's EXIF, from phone GPS, or from a point set manually on the map. GPS accuracy is saved as a radius in metres. The accuracy field is compact, because typical values are short, for example 5, 10, 25.
ENTOMONE rejects zero or unreliable coordinates such as 0,0. This case usually means that the phone's system passed a file without real GPS.
Site and locality #
A site groups records spatially by GPS and radius. Locality is the description of where one record was made, for example a name read from the map or entered manually.
Do not treat locality as a site. Two records can have different locality descriptions and still belong to one site, if they fall within its GPS radius.
Notes #
Notes are free text. In a normal record they can add detail about the circumstances. In a Note they become the main content of the entry. Do not put data with its own field into notes if you want to filter or export records by it later.