# Minimum distance between ant observations?

**URL:** <https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/minimum-distance-between-ant-observations/79059>\
**Category:** General\
**Tags:** question\
**Created:** [May 16, 2026, 3:31pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/minimum-distance-between-ant-observations/79059 "2026-05-16T15:31:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![lorb](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/lorb/32/72645_2.png) [@lorb](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/lorb)\
**Post date:** [May 16, 2026, 3:31pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/minimum-distance-between-ant-observations/79059/1 "2026-05-16T15:31:58Z")

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So I’m going around my city block adding observations for ants. Obviously if I add a species, and see an ant of probably the same species again two steps away that doesn’t warrant adding a new observation. But when does it? 10 meters away? 20 meters away? 100 meters away? I suppose the ideal would be to have one observation = one ant colony, but how would I be able to know when that is in the field?

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**Author:** ![bouteloua](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/bouteloua/32/1180_2.png) [@bouteloua](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/bouteloua)\
**Post date:** [May 16, 2026, 4:06pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/minimum-distance-between-ant-observations/79059/2 "2026-05-16T16:06:01Z")

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Hi, welcome to the forum. I would say most people would tend to only post one observation in this scenario.

But if you have an interest in ants you’re of course welcome to post more than one observation. Technically every observation just needs to represent a different individual organism.

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**Author:** ![ASJ-2022](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/asj-2022/32/61320_2.png) [@ASJ-2022](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/ASJ-2022)\
**Post date:** [May 19, 2026, 4:39pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/minimum-distance-between-ant-observations/79059/3 "2026-05-19T16:39:15Z")

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If you know the species well, you would have an idea about the limits of colony foraging and might use that.

Personally, it would not make sense to make tons of close observations of what is basically the same colony, unless you need to delimit the ranges or borders of supercolonies.

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/inaturalist/original/2X/7/7831452cf7f0d653ff1ffd34176334b7ef1b6a17.png) [@system](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [July 18, 2026, 4:40pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/minimum-distance-between-ant-observations/79059/4 "2026-07-18T16:40:15Z")

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