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not everyone using inat is trying to get something IDed! as someone who goes out to find critters for fun, i use it as a log! i don't use inat for my research, but i know people who do as a place to store observation info and to find where people observe their species of interest.

while, yes, we can't ID every single organism we see and need some help IDing, there's actually a very large community of people who use iNat primarily to share their observations and make this information available to anyone conducting research. while GBIF is not perfect, "Research grade"

I do love that the ponderosa pine is the most observed in Oregon, I would expect it to be the doug fir since they're friggen everywhere but it's a nice surprise. Cool looking tree for sure

Missouri bucking the trend there with the Brown-Belted Bumblebee unlike Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ilinois, Connecticut, Vermont and Massachussetts with their bog-standard Common Eastern Bumblebee obsession.

As a Mainer, ours seems skewed by people who were in coastal areas. Don't usually see gulls inland unless you're in a city that has a dump/access to water. I had to look up Canadian Bunchberry, I think maybe I've seen it, but not commonly. I get it's a one website thing, though, but still seems odd

This is fun. For New Zealand, our most commonly observed animal is the kererū (our native pigeon) and the plant is the ubiquitous native tree māhoe. I don't have individual images of these species so have added a couple of my diagrams illustrating their ecology.