What is the RAREST animal/plant you have ever seen

Well, I might have the first live photographic record of a monotypic ant genus in Western North America, so that is probably the new rarest animal I’ve seen https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/69064-Dolopomyrmex-pilatus

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I submitted the only record for Tropidodynerus interruptus tricolor, an exceedingly rare wasp that is known from just 3 or 4 specimens. I was the first one to record the fly Peleteria meridionalis, although others have been posted since. There are a total of four records of the Arachnid Euscorpius calabriae and three of them are mine.

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This gall midge: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/162472049.

Only 3 total observations (2 research grade) on iNaturalist. I assume it is quite rare because it’s host plant, the American Chestnut, is functionally extinct.

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My rarest animal/plant is the Florida Grasshopper Sparrow (Ammodramus savannarum floridanus) with around 100 individuals. Second rarest is the Red-cockaded Woodpecker with an estimated 12,500 individuals. Rarest plant I have seen is Texas trailing phlox (Phlox nivalis ssp. texensis); no idea on the population size but it is federally endangered.

Other rarities near me that I hope to see sometime in the near future are the Whooping Crane (around 600 individuals I think), the endangered Navasota ladies-tresses orchid (Spiranthes parksii), and the threatened Neches River rose-mallow (Hibiscus dasycalyx).

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I feel like this would be a pretty cool feature to request. I’d love to know what mine is

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There is a website to view your least observed species:
https://elias.pschernig.com/wildflower/leastobserved.html?user=hydrophilus

I took this one off of @hydrophilus ‘s page. Just replace hydrophilus with your username.

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Mine is Amorpha laevigata with only two observations. Only one of those is RG. Mine is casual because we planted them in our yard.

If you want to add observations for this species, look for it in the light green or yellow counties in this map:
Amorpha laevigata cp

Edit: there could be more on iNat that have been misIDed. I think this one might be A. laevigata: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/7313342

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My least observed species would technically be the species which I have observed zero times.

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I mean, you’re not wrong :grin:

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I ‘rediscovered’ Neorrhina viticolle. Neorrhina vitticolle on December 24, 2020 at 01:52 PM by simono. Foodplant: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/67050786 · iNaturalist. Four specimens known, last collected 1917. This is a remote part of the country and I have also collected and recorded other things not seen in decades or more than a century, and several dozen undescribed species, but this has to be the rarest described species.

I then spent the next three days searching from dawn to dusk, on every possible flowering tree, expanding in a spiral, on foot, as well as additional likely sites over the next couple of months, but had no more luck. There’s certainly more out there, but nobody’s looking.

(deleted previous post because I meant to reply to the thread in general, not just rinaturalist)

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Sweet, thanks. A little anticlimatic it was, if casual, a symbiotic mite on a hisser, wild a shell I found on the side of a beach house from a previous occupant

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I would have to say the rarest animal I’ve seen is probably a snow leopard in northern Pakistan. I saw it for mere seconds but I can remember it very clearly. It was on the other side of a very steep and narrow valley. I choked down my desire to point it out to my companions. I feared that word would get around and a poacher would try to kill it.

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I do like this site but I find pretty much all of my ones which I am the only person with obs of https://elias.pschernig.com/wildflower/leastobserved.html?user=sebastiandoak

Are more likely just because there tend to be not so many people, looking for invertebrates in generally remote locations. Like I am 10/11 obs of Pristobunus acentrus. Which seems not uncommon, but in my experience harvestmen, especially smaller Laniatores are often not on peoples radar. But then even looking for them, they can be hard to spot.

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I think the Bengal Slow Loris, Ganges River Dolphin, Irrawaddy Dolphin, Hualapai Buckmoth have to be some of mine.

According to that nifty “least observations” link the Craneopsis unicolor is my rarest. I have one of 2 observations of it and mine is the only one that is RG. Followed by Craugastor tarahumaraensis where I have 1 of 5. Almost tripped over that little thing when it jumped out of my steps. Finding it allowed a photo of a live specimen to end up in my friends book about herps of Sonora so it was a special find.

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That would be so amazing!

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It was! The younger ones would stick their entire face out of the water, but they stayed at a distance so most my photos are horrid. But I saw them so it counts, lol

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I see I have 24 observations of species for which currently my single observation is the sole iNat record of that species.

https://elias.pschernig.com/wildflower/leastobserved.html?user=susanhewitt

13 of them are smaller seashells, quite a lot of them are micromollusks.

8 are fungal pathogens which attack a plant.

1 is a crab species.

1 is a nematode.

I don’t think all of these are super rare – I guess some of them are simply under-observed.

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I would assume the rarest thing I have uploaded onto Inat is probably the Yelkouan shearwater which has approximately 20,000 individuals in the wild and its quite rare to see one on the surface of the water near the shore so my observation is pretty rare, Its considered Vulnerable by the IUCN red list. Another bird that I photographed is the redwing which is quite common worldwide but can be fairly rare in the UK. Also I have photographed the red-backed shrike which is rare. The peregrine falcon has a large range but it can be hard to spot.

Here are the links to my observations:
Observations · iNaturalist
Observations · iNaturalist
Observations · iNaturalist
Observations · iNaturalist

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At least one to five leafhoppers, just just outside my front door. The first two are the most notable that I can remember.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/103560646
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/94760057
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/142730256

Non leaf hopper wise, there’s this: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/32248064 I didn’t realize how rare it was until I shared it on the iNat Discord and a few people shouted about it.

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I don’t know if it’s the rarest animal I’ve ever seen cause it’s got several thousand observations worldwide, but the Hyaline grass bug has only been seen 50 times in Argentina and just once in my hometown and that observation is mine with RG :upside_down_face:.

And I have many other examples of species that have only been seen once in my local area and the observation is mine:

Genus Jadera
Genus Nabis

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