iNat API: searching occurrences at places return different results

ah, ok. i stand corrected. i guess the site does treat this and distributes it as its own standalone widget.

usually when folks talk about “the widget”, they seem to be talking about any of the various flavors of the observation widget. here’s and example for your place: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/widget?place_id=131950.

iNat allows folks to add records to a place checklist even if there hasn’t been an actual iNat observation in the place. this is useful for folks who want to keep an accurate list of organisms in that place based on other data sources. for example, for many plants in the US, USDA already has records of counties where those plants have been recorded. so it’s possible to load that data into iNat to reflect that collective knowledge.

i don’t think anyone has manually added such records to the checklist for your place, but there are examples in other places. for example, Deaf Smith is a relatively low density population county in Texas (where there are relatively few iNat observatons). if you look at its checklist, on page 9, there’s a record for a particular dragonfly, Sympetrum internum:

if you look at the record details, you’ll see that it seems to have been created manually, and if you search for Sympetrum internum records in Deaf Smith, you’ll find none: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=1549&taxon_id=113514&verifiable=any.