I’ve attached three screenshots. The first is from my android app which shows 1104 species, the second from my desktop profile which lists 737 and the third from when I click on the species link from my profile which shows 815 taxa.
What is the difference between these three numbers? I’m sure that the app figure is correct because for a long time I used it exclusively and uploaded one observation at a time through it. This meant I could see the species count increase as I uploaded new ones. I thought that perhaps the desktop version only counts observations at species level whereas the app will also count observations at a higher taxonomic level but I can’t figure out how to check this. Then the record of ‘815 taxa’ as another different number confused me.
From my experience, species count is one of the most buggy features on iNaturalist desktop.
I don’t use the app, but I’ve found a partial solution to the desktop problem: manually adding observed species to your life list.
Why is this solution only partial? Because it doesn’t always work…
It would be great if species count was precise and accurate, but I guess we won’t be that lucky in a near future.
I think it can be more about one source counts all “leaves” and the other one only exact species? At least the list in profile is 100% different as I read in other threads.
i think the bottom line is that life lists – lists in general – are old and are known to have problems. if you trust your app numbers, they should match up with what you see in the Explore page in the website, and just go with those.
