Wow, some of you guys have such long lists. I have One observation that is presently the Only One on iNat: Neolasioptera portulacae. However, I did see an observation of the host plant that clearly had this gall, and I requested that observer duplicate it and make it a second ID of the insect. Clearly, they have not done so.
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This might be a great idea for a wiki! Bugguide had wish lists in their forum that I liked to look through and see what was still needed for the guide. Would be really cool if someone could do this but maybe have it organized by region(s) in which each species might be found so people can easily jump to their region and add something to the list, or even better, cross it off the list!
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Here’s probably my only observation to contribute to the list:
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/1225361-Charidotella-ormondensis
Just looking through the taxon lists for lichens, and there are dozens and dozens of species that only have one observation. Plenty have none at all!
I’m just starting to delve into lichens and mosses a bit, and from the few I’ve learned so far, a LOT of observations are misidentifications. Which makes me wonder how many of those only observations are even accurate!
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Interesting question! I think I have a couple - one of these is Albinaria terebra, a small land snail from the island of Crete:
[Albinaria terebra · iNaturalist]
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/1107324-Albinaria-terebra
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It’s true. I try to check the species pages for those lichens that either the computer vision or people incorrectly suggest often. Lichen cleanup on this site is slow and difficult. Thankfully there are a few lichen people on here who help bring some much needed expertise to the table!
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Found this one a few minutes ago: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/35897915
Very interesting coat, kind of reminds me of the “point” coloration found in several domesticated species.
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Having done a bunch of Lichen IDs, I think a lot of the species with very few observations come as a result of lack of observers, and especially observers who have the equipment and desire to go deeper than just a few common foliose ones and start doing chemical tests and microscopy, and that those few of these there are are geographically limited.
Certainly during IDing I’ve seen a lot more issues arising from novices overapplying common species, over-reliance on CV, and uncritical agreements with honest mistakes, than people mistakenly thinking they’ve found something rare or underreported.
I would by no means consider myself an expert nor have I done very much intensive looking at all nor in very exciting places, but I’ve nevertheless managed to find several new species of lichens and lichenicolous fungi new to Denmark (reported to and confirmed on a national site with a more rigorous review process for rare(ly reported) species than iNat). I also have I think 3 that would be new to iNat if I uploaded them here, but I’m somewhat hesitant since I don’t like duplicate reporting. These are:
- Ochrolechia microstictoides - somewhat surprised by this one since it’s widespread and reported as fairly frequent in some places, and not tiny, though with some taxonomic confusion
- Fellhaneropsis myrtilicola - makes sense, it’s sub-milimeter size dots on twigs requiring microscopy, that I only happened to notice because I was looking at something else under a stereomicroscope that happened to also have it
- Stigmidium congestum - also makes sense, barely anyone looks at lichenicolous fungi, even less so little black ones requiring microscopy
- EDIT: actually a fourth one as well, Sarcopyrenia gibba - another little black lichenicolous fungus though one that’s rather easier to find if one knows what to look for than the above one.
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Currently I have one remaining as one, and only:
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/255491-Gleba-cordata
and one species that I have seen four individuals that represent all of the observations so far for that species on iNat:
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/1157238-Beroe-mitrata
I found a few:
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Littlewing Pearlymussel (Pegias fabula) - rare (and declining) freshwater mussel that I help monitor some of the last remaining populations of (and therefore can’t take particular credit for finding)
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Hypochilus sheari - I went to a Southern Appalachian endemic species Halloween pub crawl dressed as (a pun on the name of) this species of lampshade spider; not super confident in the ID
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Lytta unguicularis - snazzy beetle that I found near my parents’ old house
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Urocystis carcinodes - fungal pathogen on Actaea racemosa (no ID confirmation)
A couple of others that have two observations but I made both:
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Passalora caulphylli - fungal pathogen on Caulophyllum thalictroides (no ID confirmation)
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Schiffnerula leemingii - fungal pathogen on Galax urceolata (no ID confirmation)
In the very neighborhood of @jasonhernandez74 - One species, One observer, 0 identifiers and 111 observations:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&taxon_id=951439&verifiable=any
Will do the next population census in a few days. Your invited to join @jasonhernandez74 !
I wouldn’t let duplication put you off uploading these species to iNat as well. There is extensive duplication between different citizen science sites, and even within iNat the same individual organism is often observed by multiple people (for example, during bioblitzes). To me, the advantages of adding more species to iNat greatly outweigh the disadvantage of duplication.
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SvampeAtlas, the Danish national Fungi s.lato recording site in question, does send validated records to GBIF and arter.dk, an effort to make a national aggregator site of all open data biodiversity observations (which SvampeAtlas is planned to be integrated under sometime in 2023 IIRC) includes data from iNat as well so records duplication is definitely a possibility.
I doubt GBIF has anything resembling the resources to manually resolve data deduplication, potentially even the ability, since they’re constantly receiving updates straight from their data contributors. They (or downstream users) might have the ability to detect it programatically though.
I think they actually can, but it’s just easier to change licence on iNat observation to prevent it sending to GBIF.
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We have had feedback from someone who works at GBIF on this forum.
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Some researchers may need to remove duplicates, others not, depending on their objectives. For species distribution models, for example, there are established methods to “thin” data to correct to some extent for observer bias. Sometimes, only one record per grid cell (how big a grid cell is depends on the grain of analysis) would be retained. I really don’t think duplication is a problem, unless the same record was sent to two different platforms with radically different coordinates or different dates, for example.
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As in Siamese cat. And I’d bet there is a similar genetic basis, too.
Just landed a marine one and only - with a tentative ID
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I have been the first person to identify an observation of a Verbascum to the species level (not previously identified in iNat), and then had it confirmed by a curator. Very exciting for someone so new to iNaturalist with no training or previous background in plants, and I think 2 of them are still singletons.
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I don’t think those bears actually have a point gene goin on, it’s well studied in pets and that’s more than just dark face on white body, those bears actually look different with how they have black going up to the back.