When searching for multiple taxa, think it would be extremely helpful if the observation pins showed up in different colors (or customizable colors) especially if both already default to the same color (if all species searched for were plants, for example). I’m thinking this would be very helpful for understanding how the spatial distribution of some species relates to others. It would also be extremely helpful if the colored pins could be visible when viewing a species on a range-wide scale, instead of the default gray pins that prevent determining which species an observation is without zooming in to view a small area, and then if both species default to the same color, it would still be impossible without clicking on one or filtering for just one, therefore losing the advantage of seeing on a map how the presence of certain species relates to others.
I’m not sure how this could be done, but it would certainly be quite helpful with a lot of what I use iNaturalist for. Just doing an experimental search for a plant and a bird that are known to co-occur frequently certainly showed a local relation, but if viewed on a range-wide scale the observations for both default to gray making it impossible to view both side-by-side, this would be even more problematic if they were both plants, or both birds, etc., making it impossible to separate them on a local scale.
Thank you, that was exactly what I was looking for, but had never heard of it. Yes, I agree that this would be a wonderful asset if it was made more accessible.
I was trying to figure out how to make the same request when I saw your post. @lincolndurey- thats amazing! Thanks! I’d love for it to become a general use tool.
Had some fun with it and made a nice rat Snakes (genus Pantherophis) in the US map: https://bit.ly/2WTGc3t
Yes. For users that have edited their account settings to opt into the map tile test, the “compare” experimental feature appears to be broken. For a while it seemed that the taxa map feature did appear to show different colors for each taxon with both the old and new rendering approaches, but that no longer seems to be the case.