Wildlife field guide books present salient features of species, from colour and form to behaviour, and give their readers a vocabulary to express what these features look like. Such structures for observation, or observational grids, allow users to identify wildlife species through what Law and Lynch have called 'the difference that makes the difference'. In this article, we show how these grids, and the characteristics that distinguish species, change over time in response to wider concerns in the community that use and make the field guides. We use the development of Dutch field guides for dragonflies to show how the ethics of observing wildlife, the recreational value of dragonfly observation, the affordances of observational tools, and biodiversity monitoring and conservation goals all have repercussions for how dragonflies are to be identified. Ultimately, this affects not only how dragonflies are to be observed and identified, but also what is taken to be 'out there'. The article is based on a transdisciplinary cooperation between a dragonfly enthusiast with emic knowledge and access, and an STS researcher. We hope the articulation of our approach might inspire analyses of other observational practices and communities.

中文翻译：

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重新调整蜻蜓野外指南中的观测网格。


野生动物实地指南书籍介绍了物种的显着特征，从颜色、形状到行为，并为读者提供了表达这些特征的词汇。这种观察结构或观察网格允许用户通过劳和林奇所说的“差异造成差异”来识别野生动物物种。在本文中，我们展示了这些网格以及区分物种的特征如何随着时间的推移而变化，以响应使用和制作实地指南的社区中更广泛的关注。我们利用荷兰蜻蜓实地指南的开发来展示观察野生动物的道德、蜻蜓观察的娱乐价值、观察工具的可供性以及生物多样性监测和保护目标如何对如何识别蜻蜓产生影响。最终，这不仅会影响蜻蜓的观察和识别方式，还会影响“蜻蜓”的存在方式。本文基于一位具有流行知识和访问权限的蜻蜓爱好者与一位 STS 研究员之间的跨学科合作。我们希望我们的方法的阐述能够激发对其他观察实践和社区的分析。