Formatting Guidelines

Required on every row:

• scientificName (e.g. Cardinalis cardinalis) or vernacularName (e.g. "Northern Cardinal") if you don't know the scientific name
• eventDate — when it was observed, e.g. 2024-06-28 (a year alone, e.g. 2024, is fine for older records)
• recordedBy — who observed it
• decimalLatitude + decimalLongitude, or locationRemarks — a text description confirming the record is on or near WashU's Danforth Campus (e.g. "near Brookings Hall")

Note: the upload form doesn't yet support setting a date, observer, or location once for the whole file. Please repeat these as their own column on every row, even if the value is the same throughout.

Optional, but useful if you have them:

• organismQuantity — count of individuals (defaults to 1)
• organismID — only for individually marked or tracked organisms (a tag, band, collar, or accession number). Use the same value every time you record that same individual, so repeat observations can be linked. Leave blank for one-off sightings, and put a per-row record number in sourceRecordID instead.
• occurrenceRemarks — free-text notes (e.g. "heard only", "flyover")
• vitality — alive, dead, or cannot be determined
• lifeStage — adult, juvenile, larva, egg, etc.
• associatedMedia — photo or audio URLs
• sourceRecordID / sourceURL — your own record ID or a link to the original list