Platform: API
App version number, if a mobile app issue: NA
Browser, if a website issue: NA
URLs (aka web addresses) of any relevant observations or pages: https://api.inaturalist.org/v1/observations?photos=true&per_page=5&taxon_name=Ursus%20maritimus&popular=true&identifications=most_agree&quality_grade=research
Screenshots of what you are seeing:
Description of problem: I’m using the API to pull observation data for Ursus maritimus (Polar Bears) but I end up getting a result for European Brown Bear
Step 1: I’m using insomnia to make an API GET request and using: https://api.inaturalist.org/v1/observations?photos=true&per_page=5&taxon_name=Ursus%20maritimus&popular=true&identifications=most_agree&quality_grade=research
The idea is to get 5 different images that show Polar Bears.
Step 2: After performing the GET request three of the responses turn up observations of Eurasian Brown Bears with NO reference to Ursus maritimus, and the other two do go to Polar Bears. (I tried to provide the response but it goes past the character limit for a post but here’s a snippet.
"quality_grade": "research",
"time_observed_at": "2025-08-20T18:21:00+03:00",
"taxon_geoprivacy": "obscured",
"annotations": [],
"uuid": "33055ae7-7b5c-44dc-a26f-3bbfe470fea8",
"observed_on_details": {
"date": "2025-08-20",
"day": 20,
"month": 8,
"year": 2025,
"hour": 18,
"week": 34
},
"id": 335136210,
"cached_votes_total": 1,
"identifications_most_agree": true,
"created_at_details": {
"date": "2026-01-18",
"day": 18,
"month": 1,
"year": 2026,
"hour": 2,
"week": 3
},
"species_guess": "Europäischer Braunbär",
"identifications_most_disagree": false,
"tags": [],
"positional_accuracy": null,
"comments_count": 0,
"site_id": 1,
"created_time_zone": "Europe/Bucharest",
"license_code": "cc-by",
"observed_time_zone": "Europe/Bucharest",
"quality_metrics": [],
"public_positional_accuracy": 27158,
"reviewed_by": [
1167568,
1430725,
2020197,
6103969,
6191605,
7838074,
8183920,
9879832
],
"oauth_application_id": null,
"flags": [],
"created_at": "2026-01-18T02:00:02+02:00",
"description": null,
"time_zone_offset": "+02:00",
"project_ids_with_curator_id": [],
"observed_on": "2025-08-20",
"observed_on_string": "2025/08/20 18:21",
"updated_at": "2026-01-22T23:01:09+02:00",
"sounds": [],
"place_ids": [
8858,
59614,
67952,
80627,
81490,
96372,
97161,
97391,
102866,
108692,
191627,
217171,
225563
],
"captive": false,
"taxon": {
"provisional": false,
"is_active": true,
"ancestry": "48460/1/2/355675/40151/848317/848320/848324/41573/41636/846255/41637/41641",
"min_species_ancestry": "48460,1,2,355675,40151,848317,848320,848324,41573,41636,846255,41637,41641",
"endemic": false,
"iconic_taxon_id": 40151,
"min_species_taxon_id": 41641,
"threatened": true,
"rank_level": 5,
"introduced": false,
"native": false,
"parent_id": 41641,
"name": "Ursus arctos arctos",
"rank": "subspecies",
"extinct": false,
"id": 147154,
"ancestor_ids": [
48460,
1,
2,
355675,
40151,
848317,
848320,
848324,
41573,
41636,
846255,
41637,
41641,
147154
],
"created_at": "2012-09-05T07:55:57+00:00",
"default_photo": {
"id": 155433404,
"license_code": null,
"attribution": "(c) Carsten Meyer, all rights reserved, uploaded by Carsten Meyer",
"url": "https://static.inaturalist.org/photos/155433404/square.jpg",
"original_dimensions": {
"height": 1366,
"width": 2048
},
"flags": [],
"attribution_name": "Carsten Meyer",
"square_url": "https://static.inaturalist.org/photos/155433404/square.jpg",
"medium_url": "https://static.inaturalist.org/photos/155433404/medium.jpg"
},
"taxon_changes_count": 3,
"taxon_schemes_count": 2,
"observations_count": 1238,
"photos_locked": false,
"universal_search_rank": 1238,
"flag_counts": {
"resolved": 5,
"unresolved": 0
},
"current_synonymous_taxon_ids": null,
"atlas_id": 36146,
"complete_species_count": null,
"wikipedia_url": "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_brown_bear",
"iconic_taxon_name": "Mammalia",
"preferred_common_name": "Eurasian Brown Bear"
},
Step 3: I’m not quite sure how to move forward or why this is happening. Please let me know if anyone else has faced this issue before, or any explanation for why this may be happening.
