Now, let me preface this, I don’t think any major arthropod taxa is nearing inat completion any time soon. But this recent post has given some interesting numbers. . The completion percentages are 19% for insects, 14% for arachnids, and 10% for crustaceans. These match pretty closely to my own calcu…

The resources in this old reply of mine to a similar question may be of help: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/at-what-point-do-you-stop-searching-for-new-species-in-a-defined-area/16904/4

The link that post just leads to some biographies.

https://sci-hub.st/https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syw073

Look at both the top link on the comment, and at the three links on the bottom of the biography page. The latter lead to over a hundred papers she has written on this and similar topics

[image] insectilluminatigetshrekt: Could myriapods, chelicerates, or crustaceans possibly close the gap with hexapods? I’m working on it for the Crustaceans! (Not really, but I want to observe more Copepods, which I think are one of those phyla which are extremely poorly represented in iNat d…

[image] eyekosaeder: Their diversity is probably also highest in areas where iNat useage is lowest. Myriapoda also runs into the issue with microscopic features for most species, and on iNaturalist specifically there isn’t a lot of people to push back ID’s for wrong species. Lithobiomorpha f…

Thing is, myriapods are actually not hard to find. Just flip over rocks!

Soemthig also worth noting is that arachnids excluding mites has a completion score essentially the same as insects, at just over 19%. So documentary the spiders, scorpions, opiliones, vinegaroons, pseudoscorpions and such of the world is quite feasible, if daunting. It really mites dragging the who…

That is good to know (though not really all that surprising). I think, similarly to meiofaunal crustaceans, more obscure taxa such as mites have only a comparatively small portion of species described (due to morphological similarities, size, lack of prior research, etc.). I wouldn’t be that surpri…

Something interesting worth noting is that the mite taxa with largest number of species level identifcations are ticks (ixodida) and gall mites (eriophyidae). Ticks are quite large for mites, and eriophyids have very distinctive galls, and both taxa are considered of high importance to study and ide…

How fast may observation completeness increase for non insect arthropods?

General

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How complete is Arthropoda on INaturalist? General	36	1562	January 28, 2026
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Comparing vertebrate and arthropods orders on INaturalist General	17	470	December 1, 2024
Arthropod Species Observed on Inaturalist by Biogeographic Realm General	4	368	March 4, 2025

How fast may observation completeness increase for non insect arthropods?

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