iNat Milestones

General
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I’m still working on my huge backlog of things to add to iNat, but I figured I’ve done enough for today. And then I saw that I hit 1,000 species without going over.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?hrank=species&place_id=any&user_id=lappelbaum&view=species
(okay, so it’s 1,002 if I add casual obs)

Also about a month ago we hit 1,000 observations for our property survey
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/appelbaum-property-survey

I’m inching closer to 10,000 observations identified (not including mine)
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?ident_user_id=lappelbaum&not_user_id=lappelbaum&place_id=any&verifiable=any

Anyone else want to share their recent iNat milestones? You can use the links I provided above. Just replace “lappelbaum” each time with your username.

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2

I broke 100k anole identifications (my primary focus) recently…still plenty more to do!

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3

I reached 600 yard species and wrote a blog post to celebrate https://pollinatorweb.com/one-year-in-my-pollinator-garden/

The number here looks lower, because I also track bees separately that I’ve identified to “macro species” https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&user_id=egordon88&verifiable=any&geoprivacy=obscured

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I crossed 50k Bombus ID’s a while back, and 60k for Bees.

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5

I’m now over 24,000 Canadian Noctuid observations and 29,000 identifications overall. For me, that is incredible. I’m not a very fast identifier!
EDIT - My identification speed can be judged by the fact that it has just taken me 20 min. to complete three wrong Noctuid observations. I could have done it faster, but I left explanations about why I was changing the ID. I don’t like changing the ID without leaving a reason.

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Congrats on reaching that milestone! I missed the exact moment I made it there, but once I noticed I wrote a journal post to commemorate the occasion (and procrastinate on writing exams). It happened at some point during last year. I’m tempted to write another post, and yes, it’s close to final exam week again…

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I’m still waiting for my milestone of at least one observation from every human-inhabited continent. (I’m excluding Antarctica because I have no plans ever to go there). Still missing Europe.

Here’s another one: if it is possible to exceed 1,000 species observed, then it should theoretically be possible to have at least one observation from every angiosperm family (there are 415 in APG III, down from 457 in APG II).

If that’s too much traveling for you, you could try to observe every species listed in the definitive flora of your region. Or every species in the bird guide to your state.

Another milestone that is important to me is when I achieve at least one non-casual observation of every kingdom (except Archaea, which I think is unlikely; but maybe that can be another milestone). I am missing only Protozoa now.

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I will hit 10k identifications probably by end of this week. Other than that I am not expecting another milestone to be reached this year since I had to push back my goal of reaching 3000 species this year. I think, I might reach that milestone in 2023🙂

EDIT: I achieved this goal now :-)

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I successfully worked through all the needs ID for phragmites and now check it daily for the new ones. There was 300 something pages of it before so getting it down to just the new uploads was really satisfying. Now I’m working on going through the RG ones and getting them to subspecies whenever I can. Just organizing at this point.

I also finally have more IDs than observations. I have a huge backlog of observations to upload (and am currently on vacation so my son is going wild with taking pictures, so the backlog is growing) but that’s okay. I feel like identifying is more needed so I try to do that more.

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I reached my 400th observation today! Now exceeding 430.

I’ve also been trying to separate curtain domestic animals from their wild counterparts to keep the data clear. I think I’ve fully separated wild and domestic Swan Geese. I’m currently sorting wild and domestic Muscovy Duck observations. Wish me luck!

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Need around a thousand more observations to get 50k, should get in cnc or earlier.
Recently made 190k ids, I missed it, now a little bit to 200!

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I hit 25K observations last week, and by the end of this year I would like to reach 40K observations and 100K identifications.

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I have a project where I track my progress on finding all of the 416 angiosperm families(and mosses and ferns). I am at 178/416 right now, so still a long way to go. https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/yayemaster-s-missing-plant-families

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14

I’m really close to attaining 100K IDs for others. Right now, @pisum’s tool says I’m at 99,365.

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That is a stunning amount of work - thank you!

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16

If any of you are into plants and would like something to work on, I have some suggestions! The ones I have are for eastern North America only though

  • Eastern Opuntia species: Although significant progress has been made with many observations, the majority of eastern North American Opuntia are still ID’ed as humifusa, despite many of these being well beyond that species’ range, and a 2017 study splitting the species into several

  • IDing observations of Oxalis florida that have been misidentified as dillennii/stricta

  • IDing observations of Viola affinis that have been misidentified as sororia or cucullata

  • IDing observations of Urtica gracilis that have misidentified as dioica

There should be sources for identifying some of these latter ones online

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I’m inching toward 4,000 observations - I probably have at least that many if I could just finish uploading this backlog…

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18

Just passed 14 years on iNat…

And 34k observations while on my recent desert trip, plus 75k IDs as of today.

Cool to see all these amazing numbers from everyone!

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I’m jealous of your 14 years on iNat - I can’t imagine how that happened. ;-)

So what have you learned from iNat? I don’t mean the mundane but necessary things like fundraising, but what amazes you? What saddens you? Did you all ever imagine all this in the very beginning?

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My milestone… would probably be starting iNaturalist this week

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