I think it’s hard to even grasp how many species there are, at least for me. I’ve observed some 150 bird species (not all on iNat) and that’s somewhere around 0.0155% of the species on earth. iNat’s top observer has 4,459 species – around half, depending on which estimate you use. Families might be a bit more doable, but even then, there are 200, maybe 300 families, many of which are represented by an unusual, often rare, single species. If the prospects are so unlikely for large, distinctive, and easily-identified (generally and compared to most invertebrates) animals, I shudder thinking what it would be like to attempt this for arthropods, corals, or sponges.
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After posting and thinking about this question more I agree with those of you who say it is impossible to observe all animal families. The incredible amount of travel you’d have to do is both impractical, incredibly expensive, and unethical. I specialize on cockroaches and it will probably be a long while before I could jeven observe some of the rare cockroach families in nature (Oulopterygidae, Tryonicidae, Nocticolidae). Obviously there are issues like extant families having gone extinct (many of them probably), constant systematic changes, and other things, but let’s assume we don’t care about those.
I realize that even doing all animal orders would be limiting. Insects alone: finding Mantophasmatodea, and Grylloblattodea alone would take some effort. I know little about the other orders of animals but surely there are MANY geographically restricted and otherwise extremely rare Orders.
I think the underlying goal I had in mind when thinking about this is to ask what resolution you need to look at in order to decide you’ve reasonably seen “all” animal biodiversity. Perhaps a more realistic goal would be to comprise a diverse list of all WIDELY SPREAD animals in the land and/or sea and use that as a benchmark.
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You can start locally, open your new life list, there you can filter for species you haven’t observed, worldwide or in specific place, that’s a good starting point, especially if you want to see common species you’ve missed.
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But your spreadsheet is its own work of art!
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Thank you and welcome to the forum!
There are several extant animal phyla that are microscopic and extremely rare to find. For example, there are only two iNat observations of phylum Placozoa and it is not entirely clear that either of them were wild organisms. There are zero observations of phyla Loricifera, Xenoturbellidae, and probably others. It is possible that a specialist in some zoological museum somewhere in the world has had the good fortune to encounter every extant phylum in the wild (or at least recently collected from the wild). That said, given the difficulty of doing this at the phylum level, achieving it at any level lower than that seems highly improbable.
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I have made an effort to find every plant species in my county(Nassau, NY). It’s large enough that it takes time but is also very heavily observed on Inat. I currently have 1039/1749(60%), but the 1749 is likely higher than what it actually is because of garden plants with a few observations not marked as “Captive”. That is for a county. If the animal family task was to be undertaken, 50% of families would likely be relatively easy, 30% difficult, and 19% hard. When there are 8000+ families to find, finding the last 50 would be harder than finding the first 8600.
Madagascar has over 300 families endemic to it. And there are some in hydrothermal vents that haven’t been seen since the 1960’s. And…
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Even much smaller challenges are hard - I wanted to see all orchids in my state (only 50), but after several years of (obsessive 
) searching still haven’t managed and likely never will. It’s impossible to see some within the state because they are either extirpated or the only locations are in a restricted preserve or on private property (or the location is a guarded secret, needed a lot of luck and had to join some volunteer projects to learn some of the locations). And to see them out of state it requires traveling with all the cost and time problems related to that - and getting information gets even harder in other states where you don’t know any of the local botanists.
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Is there a way on Inat to see how many families I have seen without creating a project for it?
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On the inaturalist website click on your icon in the top right corner then go to Lists->View Dynamic Life List, then on the right where it says Show:Leaves select Show:Families and it should show the number at the top. Can then also filter by just plants or animals with the icons at the top left.
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Thanks. There is no option for me to click Show:Leaves however.
I only have 802:(
That’s only 9.2%±1.4% of all families on Earth(± to account for undescribed/taxon merges in my life).
Imagine 8000
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That’s so cool, I already forgot about that option since the new list appeared, got 898, not as bad as I expected it to be with out low biodiversity.
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Thanks for the screenshot, I didn’t know about that function!
I have Observed Families: 1,064 (in all taxa). 575 of those are Animalia, and the rest are mostly divided between plants (238) and fungi (204).
Intriguing thought. I’d have to go on the side that says no. Think about it, all those that are scattered all over the world. Some in very remote and seldom seen. I don’t think you’d live long enough to travel all those areas not even addressing the cost of travel, living expenses, equipment and what have you. You couldn’t have another full time job to pay for that.
I have 78 plant families only on the Cape Peninsula.
If you would be willing to turn your focus to virtual and identifying on iNat … I have seen lots of firsts (for iNat or for me) from helping to clear Unknowns for the rest of Africa.
This for example with its bony fingers on one side
And our Cape mountain cockroach for your list?
Here’s a couple who’ve been trying to document all flowering plant families: https://blog.nature.org/science/2018/08/14/a-quest-to-document-the-worlds-flowering-plants
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I’m surprised. I had no idea that I had observed 103 animal families. And that only 35 of those are insect families, and 45 are chordate families.
To give you an idea of how difficult the original proposition would be: one of my chordate families is Dulidae, comprising one species of bird, the Palmchat, which is endemic to one Caribbean island.
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I have only 684. Time to get busy!
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