C’mon. Be honest. What are some of your still unobserved species that are ridiculously common in your area?
I’ll start with my ‘most wanted’: the Northern Walking Stick. What is particularly embarrassing is that I used to see these all the time as a kid (even in our backyard), but so far… nada. And this is after I reached the top species count in my region (blush).
Another irony is that I have 4 observations of a less than common (maybe 1/12 the number) lookalike species, the assassin bug, Emesaya brevipennis.
Arrrrgh.
So…
What’s on your, ‘uncommonly common’ species list?
I live just outside of Austin, and some species that I felt a lot rarer than they should be are Camponotus sansabeanus and Atta texana, both of which I only found this month despite living in Texas for quite a bit of my life.
For a while one my missing common species was goatbeard, a plant with leaves that look similar to salmonberry and grows in the same area as it, so I often mistook them for that and didn’t take photographs. Finally, I realized what I should’ve been looking for all along and got my first photos of the plant last month.
Inspired by this post, I asked AI to write me a tool (HTML) to display for any given location a list of most commonly observed species missed by me, including the rank.
As prolific observers, focused on a certain species group, can have a considerable influence on where the first ‘gap’ appears, I tested two different scripts:
version a: checks the total # of observations in that region,
version b: uses the # of different observers of that species (this version takes a bit more time to calculate).
For the city of Vienna, using version a, the first missing species for me occurs at position #43 (a planthopper, but only observed by 5 users). Version b gives me the first missing species at position #467 (a centipede, observed by 140 users).
I would have to say California Newt. They are ALL over the place in the fall and I either don’t have a camera with me at the time, or it’s too dark to get a good pic, or ??
Some time ago in another thread, this app was posted. It will tell you the most commonly seen things in an area, how many you have posted out of those, and which ones you are missing. You can set it for any class or family of organisms (e..g birds, animals) and any geographic area (county, state, country) and pick how broad you want it to be (top 100, 500, 1000).
Note that the top 100 (or whatever) may change over the seasons as new obs are added in an area. If it is summer and there are a ton of new obs of a particular bird, that may change the rankings, which could change again come fall or winter. (the bigger the area, the less variability there is).
I have nothing to do with this app and make no promises, but here is the link:
Though my own experience was that, apart from a few fleeting evening sightings from before I joined iNat, when I did finally get a good look at one, it was because it was out during the day and clearly emaciated and in distress – while I managed to get it to a hedgehog rescue, I would have been more than happy to forego the opportunity to document a hedgehog if it had meant that this individual was going about its business healthy and well-fed somewhere out of sight.
probably more than i realize. several times i’ve realized i don’t have observations for species that i’ve seen/photographed a million times - i guess i forget i was taking photos for years before i was uploading photos to iNat!
I’ve seen 93/100 of the most common animal species in the East Bay (Alameda + Contra Costa county) which I think of as being my patch (and I mostly focus on animals when observing). But in spite of that slender salamander being the 12th most commonly observed one I still haven’t seen one, despite really wanting to and actively looking for them a few times!! They seem so adorable!!!
I think this winter I’m gonna really try and lock in and find one. Would also love to see an Arboreal Salamander while we’re at it, my salamander luck has been terrible (probably because I don’t know where to look, and because I’m always scanning the treetops for birds instead of keeping an eye on the ground…).
Well, I appear to be pretty good about documenting common species for Colorado. In the top fifty observed in the state, I’m only missing one: the Western Terrestrial Garter Snake.
Mind you, I’ve seen a couple of them, but they’re easy to spook, so you have to be quick on the shutter release. I haven’t been quite quick enough, so far.
I drew a circle somewhere between Asheville and Shelby which includes where I live (the center is north of here, as I couldn’t see the place names through all the observation pins). Then I clicked on the list of species. The first is kudzu which I have several observations of. The second is galax. I have observed no galaces. No tiger swallowtails (though I have observed tiger moths), eastern fence lizards, or sweetshrubs either as far as I remember.
One of the latest observations in the circle is a monarch butterfly. I haven’t observed any monarchs either.
Using THIS TOOL, apparently the ‘easiest’ animal that I’m missing in Ohio is a Damselfly - the Blue-fronted Dancer. There are over 8000 iNaturalist observations in Ohio, yet I have not submitted one.
Excluding insects, it is the Central Ratsnake - one that I am VERY EAGER to find! One day!
I live in Vermont, where the woods are full of Sugar maples (Acer saccharum). Vermont is the leading producer of maple syrup in the US. This year, with 8 million taps, it produced 3 million gallons of pure, delicious maple syrup.
And yet I don’t have a single observation.
Since I got my first binoculars a couple months ago, I’ve made it a fun side quest to photograph every bird in my area. I’ve been slowly but steadily getting most of them. But do you know what species is beginning to feel like it’s taunting me?
On the Canadian prairies we have a lot of birds of prey in the summertime. Even with observations of over 125 bird species here, I’m still yet to see one of the top most-observed bird species in my province, the Swainson’s Hawk
With about 300,000 plant records (over approaching 20 years) I still don’t have a good record of Quercus petraea. Apart from that I’m missing Ophioglossum and Isolepis.
