Creating a "study set" from iNat observations

I would have posted this to @pisum 's thread https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/what-would-you-like-to-learn-about-getting-data-from-the-system/19225 but it just closed a couple of days ago!

I was joking the other day that I should make “flashcards” to reinforce my learning of common plant galls, because I too easily lose the connection between their appearance and their Latin names. Then, I realized I could get the effect I’m after by focusing on species that have a relatively high number of identified observations compared to other species within their taxon group, pulling those up in whatever way I’d like to see them (in Photo Browse, Identify, etc) to go through and practice.

To see which ones those are, I can look under the Taxonomy tab on a taxon’s landing page to see the amounts of observations of assorted species, and focus in on the ones with larger numbers. Example (simple one):

https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/504113-Belonocnema
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/504113-Belonocnema#taxonomy-tab

Problem: Manually, this can be a lot of clicking and sifting to do when the list of species is quite long.

Possible easier approach: Figure out a way to automagically retrieve a list of “top” species’ observation counts within some choice of higher taxon (like, within a particular Genus or Tribe or Family), meeting some definition like count > n, or top fraction x of species in the chosen grouping. The list could be clickable in some way, or even just an output of the relevant database numbers to use, like the 504113 in “504113-Belonocnema”.

Would this be doable without much burden to the site, and if so, how would I go about it? Thanks for advice!

Most-observed species in Genus Belonocnema:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?taxon_id=504113&view=species

Most-observed species in Family Cynipidae:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?taxon_id=55594&view=species

You can change the taxon and restrict the search to a location (e.g. continent, country) using the input boxes on the page.

3 Likes

Great, I never realized the species button ranked them like that, thanks a bunch! OK, now to plan some “homework”. ;)

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 60 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.