How can see species I haven't observed in a specific region

General
1

For example - if I’m using the life list function, say I want to see all the vascular plants I have yet to observe in Michigan specifically, but there are a few species I’ve put in iNat from Indiana (or elsewhere) but not MI. Obviously these will not come up in my unobserved list for Michigan since I have put them in iNat, but not in MI. Is there a way to set it so I can see all my unobserved species in a specific region only?

Appreciate any help!

2

Try one of these options;

Using the dynamic life list and selecting for Michigan and unobserved https://www.inaturalist.org/lifelists/trtgers?view=tree&details_view=unobservedSpecies&tree_mode=full_taxonomy&taxon_id=211194&place_id=29

Second option is using the explore page with filters on Michigan and taxa https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=29&subview=map&unobserved_by_user_id=trtgers&view=species&taxon_id=211194

On second glance I see this doesn’t solve your problem as both queries don’t exclude observations of a species seen elsewhere.

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3

i think @kildor’s missed species tool can help do this sort of comparison. see https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/several-external-tools-for-inat-data-by-kildor/19906.

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4

You can use the compare tool to compare two lists, which could be the observations in Michigan against your observations in Michigan. Problem is, it caps at 500 taxa. However, it can be useful for comparing specific groups, for example here you can see your hesperids

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5

I ran into this enough times that I started writing my own web-based tools. One of the tools can give you “what’s in list A that’s not in list B?”. For the list you’re looking for, I think this link should work.

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6

@johnkenny54 Thank you, that appears to solve my problem perfectly. It looks like kildor’s tool is pretty similar, however his tool includes the species if all of your observations are down to subspecies level. (For example - I’ve observed Pteridium aquilinum latiusculum twice, but since my observations are both IDd to subspecies, it includes the actual species P. aquilinum as one of the species I still have yet to observe).
The compare tool is also helpful, but not for a taxon with lots of species like Tracheophyta, so realistically you’d have to go by each family or order individually.

Thanks again!

7

unchecking the display only species option should resolve this.

1 Like
8

Thanks! I should have looked harder

9

i looked at some of your tools. i think you might be able to get your “observations” tool to work faster by leveraging the undocumented endpoint used by the dynamic lifelist. even though dynamic lifelists are officially available only when filtering for specific users, the underlying endpoint allows you to be more flexible with your filtering. you don’t have to filter by a user at all, for example, and it’ll return results as long as there aren’t too many taxa returned. so you might not be able to get all taxa in California, for instance, but maybe all plants in the state would be doable.

here’s an example of that in action showing my plant observations: https://jumear.github.io/stirfry/iNat_observations_taxonomy?user_id=pisum&taxon_id=47126

10

try this:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=14886&subview=map&unobserved_by_user_id=YOURUSER
just add your username and change the location…