Famous last words of non-regular observer. ;)
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A guy can dream, canāt he?
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I found Platanthera azorica today in the Azores. Less than 300 plants exist in the world.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/131076193
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Probably Ceanothus Ć bakeri. It appears to be a natural hybrid between C. prostratus and an unknown Ceanothus species that is no longer present in the Tahoe basin. Thereās only one known patch that may be clonal. Thereās one historic location that hasnāt been seen since it was first collected. https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/181636-Ceanothus---bakeri
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Perhaps its not rare in general, but I saw a Steller Sea Lion (Eumetopias jubatus) at AƱo Nuevo State Park in California last year. Itās pretty rare to see them that far south as far as I know (although there appears to be a cluster of observations around the Channel Islands as well). Other than that, there are a few genetically distinct highly localized species or subspecies Iāve seen like the Lassen Paintbrush and the Mt Diablo Fairy Lantern. My rarest find might be this California Red-Legged Frog. Thatās one of the species of special concern that can completely stop work on my environmental restoration projects if we find one on site.
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If I filter by threatened it would be this: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/127600999
1 of 10, and the only pic of a female looks like. I want to say there are some others that might have less observations, but no easy way to filter for that.
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I would not be surprised if you are doing deep knee bends and other bodily contortions during observations. That takes strength and builds strength.
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I can confirm, climbing around on an overgrown forest hill for two hours observing things I get way more exhausted than I ever did just walking, just different than what my health app can detect 
I used to easily get 10k steps and 90 āheart pointsā in Google Fit from an evening walk (one heart point is 60 seconds of fast walking without stopping). Nowadays I always get a solid 0 points, since who can walk a whole minute without finding something to put on inat.
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In CRI, there was a single (to my knowledge) Mantled Howler Monkey with a color morph that gave it orange-red fur and pink skin. Had the good fortune to see it on a boat tour in 2019 ā though I believe it has since had at least one child with the same morph, which means an orange mantled howler monkey is every so slightly less rare.
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A rare encounter I had on purpose would have to be this dugong which I found in my hometown in northern Brisbane. I had been told about this individual for a few days before I had the opportunity to go out looking for it and amazingly spotted it within 5 minutes of beginning my search.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/68078481
In terms of rarest species, I have seen in terms of how many inaturalist observations of it, itād probably be this buff-footed antechinus I saw whilst camping in DāAguilar National Park. Itās not listed as a threatened species but it does only have 11 observations on inaturalist, probably because it is small, nocturnal, and only lives in a small area within Australia (mostly within national parks). This one was purely by chance, it wandered into the campsite looking for food.
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Found a Kotuku/New Zealand White heron last week. There are less than 200 left in the world, so that sets my record.
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Well Iād have to say the Snowy Plover. Being that I live in Calgary, I was lucky enough to get a very good look at a pair of them. I was very fortunate because I saw them the day they were reported, and they left only a couple of hours after I saw them. Iāve tried to go see a couple of rare birds but how rare is it when everyone in town has seen it? I saw the Juvenile Yellow-crowned Night-heron that was at Inglewood Bird Sanctuary in 2020, it was quite popular and even made the news. I also got to see the Green Heron at Fish Creek Provincial Park as well as the Lesser Black-backed Gull a couple weeks ago. As for mammals probably the Cougar I saw this summer. and for insects I saw a Thera otsi two summers ago, I donāt know how rare it is but it has a small amount of inaturalist observations.
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I donāt know if this counts but I once saw an escaped civet that used to be owned by someone. I didnāt took any photo because it was too dark too take without flash, too scared that it will ran away if I use flash.
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was it in an area that it was a native?
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Not on iNat because I donāt really have coords or much in the way of pictures from that far back, but probably Texas tortoises? Possibly grizzly bear (seen in Wyoming) or some of the (unknown species of) weasels Iāve when I lived in Colorado? Or maybe the pika?
I honestly dontā know enough about invert populations to even make intelligent guesses as to what the rarest ones Iāve seen are.
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I found a horned guan in Guatemala on a section of a farm that had a large section re-wilded by the owner with trees the guans preferred for their habitat. This was the first sighting of a horned guan on the property, so it was a rare bird and a great find:
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Well, it was only just identified four days ago, but it turns out that on my French Polynesia trip back in April, I made what was then only the fourth iNat observation of the Malay-apple gall psyllid. Three more observations of it have been added since, for a total of seven.
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I ran into an entomologist in Greek Thrace a few years back. As we were talking, he spotted, caught and showed me a specimen of a new hoverfly species he had just recently discovered, description at the time still pending publication. Unfortunately I didnāt make a note of the proposed name, and since forgot it.
Among species I can actually put a name to, this might be a good candidate:
ā¦and not only is it rare, the story of its discovery, apparent disappearance and declared extinction, subsequent rediscovery and reclassification, marking it as not just a Lazarus taxon but also a living fossil, is quite fascinating, only all the more so for such a large and distinctive species, native to such a highly developed, densely populated and, one would think, well studied region.
Along the same line of easily identifiable vertebrates, one would think any such, in this case presumably even easily detectable, species whose entire range is most likely rather well documented on iNat (well, maybe not all of the surrounding islets), yet having only one record is not exactly common: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/98111639
Those are just the first to spring to mind. If, apart from globally rare species, we include locally rare species, rare hybrids and aberrations, rarely documented behavior, etc., a host of other observations would certainly also be candidates.
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Iāve had several surprises when getting home to upload pics and ID and finding out that something was endangered or an iNat first. Probably my rarest would be this plant from West Texas with only 7 iNat observations from one small area https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/74806952
and this beetle which isnāt super-rare, but mine is the only obs. from Texas https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/1701659 and also happens to be my very first observation to iNaturalist.
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Tachinus fimbriatus. Not necessarily rare, but itās the first observation of this species in my state.
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