Mine would definitely be this Sonoma Sunshine - I spent 6 weeks looking for the endemic species and finally found it on a sunny Sunday morning.
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Well, this is kinda rare… but it’s not that exciting just because of that!
A week ago I made a trip to a now very degraded part of some forested hills on northern Peru. I was down in a little creek when I caught a whiff of the most heavenly smell I’ve ever come across of. It smelled like old lady perfume mixed with frankincense. I stopped whatever I was doing down there and climbed out of the tiny ravine. After a little search, I found some vines hanging down the riverbanks, and it was this https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/74630779… tiny but pretty flowers! I got some with me, specially because I have my personal herbarium, and surprisingly the flowers kept their aroma, after 2+ hours of driving in the hot Peruvian late-summer. I asked Grandma about these… she said these are medicinal (called San Juan, or St. John’s vine)and used in curative baths. Folklore or not, the smeIl cannot be beaten by any flower I’ve ever smelled and I have a few shoots growing in water! They’re doing fine by now…
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Not mine.
Most exciting and rarest so far is this species of wedge-shaped beetle (which are bee parasites). It has only 11 observations and I added the first in my state. I had no idea what I was looking at in the moment! https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/712006-Ripiphorus-rex
(Still not research grade hint hint nudge nudge)
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Distant relative of Tyrannophorus rex? 
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A few years ago I found a San Francisco lacewing in southwest Washington: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/6028492
It’s a pretty uncommon insect, and a in 1994 it was even a proposed species for listing under the Endangered Species Act, but wasn’t ever listed. It’s a really good example of how many small, not-as-charismatic species often end up falling through the cracks with regards to getting protection. I’ve only ever seen the one in my five years here, and I worry there may not be very many.
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and you found it 4 km out at sea!
(joke)
Actual location is obscured because it’s a rare species.
Finding wolverine tracks in the snow at Mt Rainier NP and finding an article from the summer stating they hadn’t been seen in the park for 100 years prior.
This was my first observation on iNat which was suggested to me by a mammal track expert from Texas.
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