Species identification can be challenging for biologists, healthcare practitioners and members of the general public. Snakes are no exception, and the potential medical consequences of venomous snake misidentification can be significant. Here, we collected data on identification of 100 snake species by building a week-long online citizen science challenge which attracted more than 1000 participants from around the world. We show that a large community including both professional herpetologists and skilled avocational snake enthusiasts with the potential to quickly (less than 2 min) and accurately (69–90%; see text) identify snakes is active online around the clock, but that only a small fraction of community members are proficient at identifying snakes to the species level, even when provided with the snake's geographical origin. Nevertheless, participants showed great enthusiasm and engagement, and our study provides evidence that innovative citizen science/crowdsourcing approaches can play significant roles in training and building capacity. Although identification by an expert familiar with the local snake fauna will always be the gold standard, we suggest that healthcare workers, clinicians, epidemiologists and other parties interested in snakebite could become more connected to these communities, and that professional herpetologists and skilled avocational snake enthusiasts could organize ways to help connect medical professionals to crowdsourcing platforms. Involving skilled avocational snake enthusiasts in decision making could build the capacity of healthcare workers to identify snakes more quickly, specifically and accurately, and ultimately improve snakebite treatment data and outcomes.

对于生物学家，医疗从业人员和普通民众而言，物种鉴定可能具有挑战性。蛇也不例外，有毒蛇的错误识别可能会造成重大医疗后果。在这里，我们通过建立为期一周的在线公民科学挑战赛，收集了有关识别100种蛇的数据，吸引了来自世界各地的1000多名参与者。我们显示，一个大型社区，包括专业爬虫学家和技术娴熟的职业蛇爱好者，都有潜力迅速（不到2分钟）且准确（69-90％；见文字）确定蛇全天候在线活动，但只有一个即使有蛇的地理起源，一小部分社区成员仍能熟练地识别蛇的种类。不过，参与者表现出极大的热情和参与度，我们的研究提供了证据，表明创新的公民科学/众包方法可以在培训和能力建设中发挥重要作用。尽管由熟悉本地蛇类动物的专家进行鉴定始终是金标准，但我们建议医护人员，临床医生，流行病学家和对蛇咬感兴趣的其他方可以与这些社区建立更多联系，并且专业的爬虫学家和熟练的职业蛇迷可以组织方法来帮助将医疗专业人员连接到众包平台。让熟练的职业蛇爱好者参与决策可以增强医护人员的能力，从而更快，更具体，更准确地识别蛇，