How come Monarch butterflies are the third most commonly observed organism on INat? Aren’t they supposed to be uncommon?

Personally, monarchs are my most observed species, and that does not include the captive ones I’ve raised. When I first realized this, I was a bit surprised, too. I think what contributes to it for me is that I try to document every single monarch I see, including eggs, caterpillars, and chrysalises…

As others have mentioned, the Monarch occurs on several continents. It is the migratory subspecies of North America that has seen a steep decline in population numbers (though other populations, e.g. Puerto Rico , also aren’t doing so great either). “Uncommon” is a relative term. For species with an a…

it’s probably probably at least partly because IDs to subspecies are less common, but there were only 23 observations of the endangered migratory subspecies through the period you mentioned, most of which were in the eastern united states.

[image] brian_banker: How many monarch observations are from 2020-2021, the alleged all-time nadir when there were (officially) fewer than 2000 monarchs left in the entire western US? It’s terrible that we let facts get in the way of a good narrative! That 2,000 number was a snapshot number …

At least where I live, Monarch populations vary wildly from year to year but in most years they are fairly common. In some years, they are probably the most common butterfly.

In my experience, most of my observations are bees and other pollinating insects, so I often encounter monarchs while snooping around flowers, so I’ve made it a habit to get an observation of them whenever possible. They are pretty large and charismatic butterflies that most people recognize, so I t…

Reposting this with permission and a few edits. This is a great question! Ultimately, monarchs are the third most commonly observed species because they are very common. Andy Davis has done some slightly deeper analysis of the iNaturalist monarch data, focusing on the estimated summer range. Here’s…

Some thoughts I have that I haven’t seen as clearly in other comments: One predictor of high species observation counts on iNaturalist is how easy it is to identify. In my experience, many people get their start in interest in identifying insects by learning about the Monarch-Viceroy mimicry, and a…

IMHO this is the answer. Look at Great Blue Herons - They’re common, but they’re not as common as American Robins, and yet they have more observations than Robins. If I took and posted a picture of every robin that I saw, I’d probably be posting 5-6 robins a day because they just hang out in my yar…

That is a great point, but I think the original question is why monarchs are number 3 globally when they’re supposed to be uncommon. Just like in the heron and robin situation, it isn’t that monarchs are uncommon and just observed a ton, it’s that they’re common and they’re observed disproportionate…

Monarch butterflies are third most commonly observed?

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Monarch butterflies are third most commonly observed?

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