As far as I can tell, there is no way to simply search for a species in Seek. There’s a search bar for observations, but I have to have already gotten the ID to find the species that way. I often want to look for species that I haven’t yet encountered. Add a search bar!
Hi @jennyfey, I’m copying the text from your other feature request below. I think if they do add a species search, it would make sense at the same time to also include the taxonomy, similar to what is done in the main iNaturalist app.
@jennyfey: When I’m looking at a species, the app offers me “similar species” to peruse below, but these are often not related closely taxonomically. Not sure what makes them “similar” actually. Sometimes I am looking at an animal and the app is not able to give me an ID but I know it’s, say, a sparrow. Being able to look through all the sparrows and learn about their differences would be a huge benefit!
As far as that “Similar Species” section, I believe it pulls from observations that have been identified as both the species in question and the ones in that list. For example if you are looking at a monarch butterfly on Seek, the viceroy and queen butterflies show up as “similar species” because these are commonly confused on iNaturalist. (and iNaturalist/Seek doesn’t describe the differences between organisms, but often the accompanying Wikipedia page will.)
Let me know if I’m misunderstanding the request. :) Thanks!
I think this goes a bit beyond the scope of Seek. Seek will show you species that can be seen nearby and can help you ID organisms via the camera, but it’s not meant to be a way to research organisms, so I’m going to close this request.