I feel like that photo is A.I. generated. The beetle is beautiful, yes; but it’s not literally gold-plated reflective lol
Here’s a photo from Wikipedia for comparison:
Also worth noting I couldn’t find the original Alan Henderson source as quoted. Here’s an actual photo from his website (gold one is in bottom right):
Probably not AI. There really are some quite strikingly metallic beetles around. I have the shell of a similarly brilliant metallic green/red/yellow/(angle-dependant) beetle on a shelf here.
More photos: https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/observations?taxon_id=201876
All those photos are after 2022 (when gen a.i. images took off). The ones by Alan say “observed 2013”, but on iNat that doesn’t mean much, it’s just image metadata. It was uploaded literally yesterday.
All the photographs I could find online before 2022 of the same species do not look like they’re made of polished gold; they look like the photo in above comment. Seems strange to me that the same species can sometimes be matte, and sometimes iridescent, but I’m not a bug expert.
Maybe they are sometimes actually that shiny. But we live in a world where it’s beneficial to have reasonable scepticism. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. I still think it looks A.I. generated, but obviously I have no proof or anything.
Skepticism is often warranted, but you’re making some big claims of fake imagery and digging your heels in but not doing the work to back it up. I suspect the photo you found on the wikipedia page for A. aureus is mislabelled.
Wikipedia is never a reliable source, but it can contain good references such as:
Hangay, George; Zborowski, Paul (2010). A Guide to the Beetles of Australia. Collingwood, Victoria: CSIRO Publishing. ISBN 978-0-643-10193-7.
…available on Anna’s Archive, with this photo:
I guess it is real then.
There’s no need to get snippy or personal, though. Simply sharing my thoughts is hardly a “big claim”, and justifying my opinion isn’t “digging my heels in”. I also did more than zero research. I did multiple image searches, checked several websites, compared dates, and scoured Alan’s personal albums to try and find the source of the photo. The only photos I could find of the shiny version were after 2022. So it’s unfair to suggest I didn’t do any work at all. From what I found, all evidence suggested it was fake.
There’s this annoying habit of people on Lemmy where if they ever think someone is wrong, they become condescending and rude. I’m not tolerating it anymore. I’m not evil, stupid, or your enemy just because I was wrong.
but you
Sorry yeah that was a bit harsh. I was feeling protective of the efforts of inaturalist observers and mildly resentful at having to do the work (by my own violition). Work which should be unnecessary because we shouldn’t be feeling like every day is wading through endless AI slop.
Yeah I hate it too - I hate that when I see something amazing nowadays, my first thought isn’t “wow!” anymore; it’s “… is that real?”
I actually contribute to iNaturalist myself - I uploaded some stuff yesterday even. I found an adorable baby noisy miner, and the parents let me take a photo with only a warning cacophony.
I didn’t consider it until now, but I’m sure someone has already sneaked A.I. photos on there
:/.
There is literally a credit under the picture. Not AI.
You literally didn’t read my comment. Also the credit could have used A.I.
It’s a very pretty beetle.
Hard not to choose that one, honestly.
And the Christmas Beetle Count is on! https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/christmas-beetle-count
I’ll put up post tomorrow.