The most recent trip I did was to India and given that my camera is broken from my summer trip to Hawaii in 2023, I was surprised to get some of the most uncommonly found animals in the area like Spotted Owlets, Indian giant squirrels (endemic to peninsular India and rarely found in the eastern ghats), and a chequered Keelback. Let me know what trips you guys have been and I’ll share more in the coming days
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Once when I went to Mexico on a cruise, I saw a stingray while snorkeling. I wasn’t able to ID it but it was still super cool. And a green anole in Florida.
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I went to Millport, Scotland specifically for a biodiversity course, and I found almost a quarter of all my observed species there, including some of my rarest! Highlight of the trip was definitely this Phyllodoce lamelligera; I fought with my professor over its ID because presumably he didn’t believe we’d find it, haha. I also adored the Aphrodita aculeata we got to dredge up. They’re just so charming.
I can’t think of any other really fruitful trips. I did go to South Africa once, but I was very young and don’t remember anything, so even though we have photos of big game, I don’t feel like I actually saw them.
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My trip to the Bocas del Toro archipelago and the Talamanca mountains in Panama last year was awesome. I made 463 observations of 309 species. Some of the highlights were being the first non-Panamanian to observe the Fortuna Pass giant anole on iNaturalist. Other cool observations were this Central American dwarf squirrel, Maroon-chested Ground-Dove, Three-wattled Bellbird, and so many more. Probably one of my biggest thrills was getting to see a few morphs of strawberry poison dart frog (Oophaga pumilio). That one is blue but I saw another beautiful red variety. It was an insane trip and I added well over 100 new species of birds and a total of 429 species on the trip.
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On my trip to Sylt for an intertidal ecology course I got a bunch of marine organisms, mostly focusing on meiofauna and things around that size: All marine observations
It included my first ever nudibranch, a bunch of polychaetes, and some foramnifera, which are some of my favourite taxa.
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@k-talks Have you considered uploading your trip narratives to your Journal pages? That’s where I tend to enumerate the nature encounters I’ve had on recent journeys.
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My biggest trip was probably to Lithuania, back before I discovered iNat. I saw a whole bunch of magpies, and also my first and only moose!
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One of my favorite trips to-date was my trip to Hawai’i in 2024. My favorite organisms were the native Hawai’ian honeycreepers, but I also enjoyed the other native plants and animals the islands had to offer!
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That is the best trip I have had for my INaturalist I had. In 2023, I went to Maui (I went in July, and a month later, the main parts of town I visited all burnt down). In Maui, I got 42 species. I got endemic snails, fish, birds and so much more. Haleakala National Park is a haven for birds like I’iwi, Mau’i Amakihi, 'Apapane, and much more. The wetlands provide the best habitat for Hawaiian Coot and Black-necked Stilt. I saw nesting Wedge-tailed Shearwater and Green sea turtles. Black noddies, Frigatebirds, and Boobies are some of the birds I saw during oceanic trips to see dolphins and more. The creeks on the road to Hana have some of the best diversity as near the Tidepools, Eels can be found and the creeks themselves, you can see Endemic gobies and shrimp. Hawaii’s biodiversity is crazy and I wish I could see more of the islands but sadly, The Big Island trip was cancelled because the volcano was not erupting and we decided not to go
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The Big Island is the last of the 4 big islands I haven’t been to, and I really want to go! As for Maui (the island I went to), I didn’t get to see any of the Maui endemics (Alauahio, Kiwikiu, Akohekohe), so I’m excited to go back at some point and explore Haleakala more in depth!
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