This happens more than I care to admit. I work so hard to get the tiny mites/springtails etc in focus, that I miss everything else. Saw this beautiful Snout Mite and only at home saw the giant next to it! And I love weevils, how did I miss it?
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I didn’t even see the Silver-spotted Skipper when I was taking the photos of the New Mexico Locust. Once I noticed him, though, he got his own observation.
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I obsereved these leaf-spot galls on a greenbriar:
[image description] A greenbriar leaf with numerous circular brown-and-tan spots [end image description]
I’m so used to seeing Smilax rotundifolia everywhere, I didn’t think much of it, as I was focused on the lifer galls, and especially excited to have observed an undescribed species (Meunieriella on-smilax). Well, while I was adding observation fields to other observations of the same gall, along comes @graytreefrog and comments that this is a seldom-observed species of Smilax. Looking again – and consulting Petrides – I notice the conspicuous absence of the painful thorns that characterize S. rotundifolia, and that the leaves, although the same shape as those of S. rotundifolia, are not leathery. It is Smilax walteri – a lifer Smilax for me, that I would have missed if not for the observant eyes of another iNat user.
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I didn’t evenn notice at first when I was taking photos of this Eastern Box Turtle that it had a Twin-flagged Jumping Spider hitching a ride on it’s back!
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Fun! Did you add a new observation for the spider?
I realized there were Cyathus in this photo (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/181139917) that I totally overlooked when I was taking it! There are also tons and tons of mosses, liverworts, and lichens in many of my photos what I’m simply too ignorant to recognize. Someday, I’ll need to take a lichens/bryophytes class.
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There’s an entire cormorant in this turtle photo!
(http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/174083773)
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I got so focused on the Rosy Pussytoes that I didn’t see the bluet sitting on the log. I’m not usually oblivious to odes!
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Good point. I need to do that. There are never enough spider observations, especially identifiable ones…
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four bugs sharing the same flower!
a teensy little crab spider with its prey (some caterpillar?) above a wasp as well as a goldenrod soldier beetle to the left!
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Most of these were identified as BHCOs but there are a few RWBLs and grackles in there. I’ve found a few of those impostors:
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/151524993
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I like the cormorant in the middle, spreading his wings as if to hide the goose. “Don’t worry buddy; I got’cha covered.”
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I’m just reviewing my photos from the weekend and was about to delete this one where the bird took off before I got a photo.
I hit zoom just to make sure I’d definitely missed the bird and this beetle is dead centre of the frame
Luckily I found another one later that day so I don’t feel too bad about being too focused on birds and missing it.
https://uk.inaturalist.org/observations/186828322
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I took a picture of these pelicans. And I only noticed when uploading the picture, that there is a little ringed bill gull in the picture! It’s so well camouflaged.
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Absolutely! I just went through a bunch of my old vacation photos of birds this past weekend and added about new 15 plant species to my observations by cropping out the birds and looking at all the flowers/trees in the background. One single American Pipit photo from Alaska had 4 plants in the frame that were new to me. :)
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We’ve seen a few pics of arthropods on reptiles in this thread. As an avid herper, I can confirm that is quite a common sight. My local lizards always seem to have ticks on them, and it is not at all uncommon seeing a mosquito, fly, beetle, spider, ant or similar just hanging out on, or moving across, the back of a basking snake.
This, however, is my own favorite observation in this category, not really hiding, though, and sadly not my own photo either, but rather that of a friend, since I lost my camera, incl. memory card later in this trip :-(
Northern walkingstick on timber rattlesnake
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Try finding 3 wood ducks and 2 Northern Pintail and any other non-mallard duck in this flock of mallards
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/189009519
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Great photo - and challenge! Spotted two of the wood ducks and got the third a little later. Thought I found the pintail but when I looked more closely I wasn’t sure anymore. 
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