The only one in your country?

Nature Talk
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yesterday i uploaded a pic of ficus coronata and it turns out it’s the only observation of this species in the united states. by comparison, i also uploaded a pic of a cooper’s hawk, of which there are 87,816 observations in the united states. is this a fair or useful comparison? apples and oranges? ficus coronata is native to australia while the hawk is native to the united states.

if you only take pics of native organisms then it’s a lot less likely that one of your observations will be the only 1 of that species in your country.

the ficus coronata that i took a pic of isn’t the only one in the country. there’s also a tree in a different local botanic garden. i don’t get the impression that it’s rare or endangered in australia. but nature’s #1 rule is to not keep all her eggs in one basket. this is why ex-situ conservation is so extremely important.

is there a bias among inaturalists against the most common species? do birders really make the effort to submit observations of every sparrow they see? i can’t imagine insecters making the effort to submit observations of every ant they see.

anyways, if you have the only observation of an organism in your country please share it. if you have multiple such observations, please share them all. i’d love to see who has the most.

also, it would be great if someone could invent a term or acronym for this. the only word that comes to mind is “monopoly”. organism observation country monopoly (oocm)? countrywide organism observation monopoly (coom)? how many cooms do you have? who has the most cooms? of course i’m assuming that a term for this doesn’t already exist.

x = i have 1 coom
y = i’m the top identifier for ficus auriculata (442)

which deserves more kudos, x or y? i’m not going to lie, each time that i identified a ficus auriculata i’d scroll down a bit to see if my rank changed. to be clear, i would have identified all the observations of this species anyways since this is my area of research. but, who doesn’t want to be at the top of a leaderboard? whose idea was it to rank identifiers for a taxon? for the ficus genus i’m currently ranked #36 with 518 ids. how much does knowing my ranking motivate me to improve it?

y took way more time, effort and brainpower than x. and anyone in my area could get rid of my x simply by submitting their own observation of ficus coronata. then i would have 0 cooms. of course i’d be happy if someone else local did submit observations of relatively rare ficus species.

i’m looking forward to seeing all your cooms.

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I do in fact try to post every insect I see. If I can get a photo of it, I will post it, no matter how common and no matter how many I see. I’m not sure how many others do the same thing, but I just like documenting as many creatures as possible and as far as I’m concerned they’re nice easy observations and posting them gives a good impression of what can actually be seen nearby.

I’m in the top 50 identifiers for a number of species, and I’ve found that this helps motivate me a lot because I know I’m pretty high up, but still not in a position like top 10, and I love the idea of getting somewhere near the top and being able to be proud of how much I’ve done.

I think any answer to this would be highly subjective. It depends on how hard it was to find that observation, how hard it was to do those IDs, how long these things took, how much you personally value the IDs vs the observation, how good you are at actually identifying the species those IDs are for, and probably many other factors I can’t think of off the top of my head.

There are species I’ve photographed with very few observations worldwide but I stumbled across them without knowing, so it’s fun but wasn’t much effort. There are species I’m in the top 5 identifiers for that are easy to get that high on the leaderboard for because there are so few observations, so I see it as less of an achievement. There are species I’m further down the leaderboard for but have identified hundreds of times and am very proud of my ability to ID them, so I see that as more of an achievement than either of those other two. Once again, it’s all very subjective and what one person sees as deserving of kudos might not be all that impressive to someone else

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I don’t know what the total number is, but I have dozens of observations that are the only ones for Ecuador, indeed, the only observations anywhere. That’s because most people don’t search out the very small mollusk species.

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Monopoly implies exclusive control, access or ownership. No iNatter has exclusive control or access to an organism, some are just harder to get to or of lower interest than others. I’ve had original observations for some species on iNat but my “monopoly” on those didn’t last long.

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Here’s one that is not small but is, to date, the only iNat observation of the species.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/151857856

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At least 6 of my Observations appear to have been the first on iNaturalist of species native to this country and at least two were the only ones in iNaturalist of that species at all.

I always try to put in Notes some details (what plant, where on plant, etc) and am happy that most have subsequently been observed by others; ideally there will be enough Observations to train the CV.

I believe for one or two species, mine remains the only Observation unfortunately, which is not at all a good thing.

Because of how I observe, I also have the only Observation of an individual for a few different species of native bees otherwise only observed in nests/groups. (This has proved useful for taxon photos.)

I do not see benefit in specifying further, as I do not share the OP’s interest in formulas, markets, etc.

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As discussed on other threads every user uses the platform differently, some post everything they see, others the first time they see something, others a significant or rare species for a region, or a combination of reasons. All of these are equally valid in the eyes of the platform, although I feel you might disagree.

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i have to admit i thought this was all an elaborate setup for a coomer joke.

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since papernautilus is the only one supplying observations of goniofusus spectrum, the exclusive control isn’t over the organism itself, but about the supply of its observations. the barriers to entry, in my case, are pretty high. i’d have to fly to ecuador for starters.

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Useful tool linked above. Here’s one of my dozens of unique findings: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/791157

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you and papernautilus both have ooms. an oom is more worthy of kudos than a coom. now i’m wondering if i have any pictures of ooms. i’m sure i do… somewhere.

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Yes. Many people don’t observe organisms of species of which they remember already having uploaded an observation. Even apart from that, no one takes a picture of every beech tree in a forest, but if there‘s a single other tree in that area, they will probably upload an observation of that. Assuming that they have made an observation of 10 beeches, that ratio is still very askew.
iNat therefore isn’t really a tool for gaining population data (unless a user makes a special effort and curates projects specifically meant for that).

Another thing which is difficult to do with iNat is compare observations across „taxon borders“. Species which are more easily accessible will be observed more. (Even two ants of the same genus aren’t really comparable if one of them lives in cities and the other in a swamp or in the mountains).
In some extremes, like microscopic organisms, comparing population sizes with bigger creatures is just impossible with iNat data. Copepods are among the most abundant organisms on the planet, yet I have a bunch of iNat-firsts of that taxon simply because I‘m one of the few people actively looking for them (sometimes) and because I‘m one of even fewer who tries to get detailed pics of all the identifying features (Antennule, Furca, Legs) which takes quite a bit of patience.

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Same here, I don’t know insects I just think they’re cool so I take a picture. And turns out one of them has less than 1000 observations. I still don’t know if they’re rare or just people don’t make observations of htem but they’re cool

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I have a lot of firsts for my country but I live on a mountain top in Haiti. One decently sized flowering plant I’m the only person to identified it in many decades (https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/1520281). It really depends on your country and your niche interests.

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I have a few ‘rare’ photos simply because I photograph insects and little plants when most people are photographing the big critters.
Or because when I go on holiday I’m the one photographing every plant and critter. We also live in a relatively untouched part of Australia.
Haven’t yet been the first ever but have some first iNat photos.

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This is definitely not the equivalent of a monopoly. A) there is no financial gain for being the only current observer of a species on iNat, and B) unequal access is not the equivalent of a monopoly.

A monopoly is a market situation where a single entity has the power to control the supply of a product or service, and can dictate prices or exclude competitors.

In your example, papernautilus doesn’t have the power to control the supply of “a product”. Sure, you may not have the means to fly to Ecuador, but that is your own limitation, not one papernautilus has imposed on you. There are people that do have the means to fly and there are already people in Ecuador, perhaps even neighbors of papernautilus, that have every ability to observe the same species if they so choose. I doubt papernautilus would make any attempt to discourage them let alone outright exclude them from making such observations.

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Of course I don’t have a monopoly. I don’t claim to have one or want to have one. Quite the opposite, in fact. I would like to see more dots added to the map. This should be relatively easy for Goniofusus spectrum. It is an offshore species, so it doesn’t often wash up on the beach but reportedly it is not uncommonly taken by shrimp trawlers, and its range extends from Mexico to Ecuador.

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Personally, I only post what I have the time to post, and I don’t have a lot of time.

The you might be looking for is, Exclusive.

From a scientific perspective, I think it is more beneficial for people to post everything, rather than just rare and invasive things.

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It is also worth mentioning that as much as I am an iNaturalist fan, it is not the only data collection point.

One of my very first interactions here was showing @rupertclayton a link to a plant he had never seen a photo of because the photo was in CICY’s collection. And CICY is just one of Mexico’s scientific institutions; there are many more.

So what is an “iNaturalist first” is just that: an iNaturalist first.

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Scyllinula obscura has only been photographed once. This is the first observation of this species.
Scyllinula obscura on February 4, 2024 by Maite Etchevarne
And it’s now on a few websites:

Screenshot 2024-12-12 114618
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Screenshot 2024-12-12 114603
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Here’s the link to the website.
…
Orthoptera Species File - Scyllinula obscura (Bruner, 1900)

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