Has anyone else discovered small populations of animals far outside their natural range, solely by playing with iNat’s explore page? I find that I often use iNaturalist’s explore page to answer general questions about the ranges of particular animals. For instance, I wanted to know whether porcupin…

Bison are native to Florida. the only reason it seems like they are far outside their natural range is because of how disjunct they became after we nearly wiped them out.

They’re considered introduced by iNat on all the obs.

Earlier this year when I was planning a trip to Kentucky, I came across this observation of Cleome ornithopodioides which is native to Eastern Europe and West Asia, and is the only observation of it in all of the americas. Similarly, near me I found this observation of Alisma lanceolata, a species …

I was pretty surprised to see these: Hadedah Ibis in the Canary Islands Yellow-fronted Canary in Mauritius and Hawaii Clicking Stream Frog in St Helena, a remote island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean

They’re native to Florida but only the panhandle.

I discovered that Wisconsin and Illinois have Mediterranean Geckos.

The species maps with disjunct records are a good way to detect erroneous IDs for many organisms. Or RG records that should’ve been marked Captive/Casual. Although, yes, sometimes they show a new disjunct natural population. I don’t normally post captive critters but this one I enjoyed seeing: htt…

I should have used your method. I once misidentified a deer in Delaware because I had no idea there was an introduction of Sika deer nearby. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/41753202

Has anyone else discovered small populations of animals far outside their natural range, solely by playing with iNat's explore page?

Nature Talk

raymie December 10, 2024, 5:21pm 12

They aren’t free-roaming, they’re in a fenced area and are returned when they escape.

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Has anyone else discovered small populations of animals far outside their natural range, solely by playing with iNat's explore page?

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