Hi @charlescrussell. I don’t believe there’s any official documentation for these mapping tools. I think both of them were mentioned by iNat staff in passing in various discussions on this forum. Here are some threads with info on the Taxa Map and/or the Compare tool:
- Ability to add other species layers to map when identifying
- Plot comparative distribution maps for taxa
- Use unique colors for observation pins when searching for multiple species
Maybe there’s something more formal, but I’m not aware of it. Basically, for the Taxa Map, you can take the URL I listed above and substitute your own taxon IDs. For the compare tool there’s an actual interface, but you still need to add in your own search terms, which use the same syntax you’d see on the Explore and Identify pages.
As far as I know, it is possible to do this with the Compare tool but not the Taxa Map. You can use all the same search parameters that are available for Explore and Identify searches. For example, this first string below would map all the Ensatina eschscholtzii ssp. orgeonensis observations between April 1 and June 30 this year, and the second would map all observations in April, May or June of any year:
taxon_id=123959&d1=2020-04-01&d2=2020-06-30
taxon_id=123959&month=4,5,6
Are you looking for something like that?