Congratulations Bethanne Bruninga-Socolar for uploading our 5000th observation to the Personal Bioblitz project, just a moment ago!

We have notified iNaturalist's helpdesk that there are some issues with how the leaderboard list is updated (it is not updating properly) and species added to the overall species checklist. Hopefully it will be fixed soon. In the meantime, I encourage all project curators to help ID and agree with ID's of observations uploaded by participants. Also, if you added something to ID Please and then got the correct name, remove it from the ID Please group. I hope you are having fun!

OK, so the major problem with the group counting has been fixed, but this is what you need to keep in mind. Your should try to get your observations down to the species level, if possible - the LEADERSHIP list is arranged by species seen, not observations reported. (We will still have prizes for most observations, etc.). However, even if you can't get it to the species, but just to the family or genus it will be listed on the CHECKLIST, which summarizes what we all have seen together. If someone has seen a species of that genus or family, we will only count the species, but for many organismal groups it will end up just being higher ranks. For example, I am not sure anybody has seen a particular earthworm species yet.

Don't wait with getting your species uploaded and ID'd... it is only one month left now! I know there are many of you sitting with species in your notebooks and cameras that are not yet on iNaturalist, so time to get them on. Will we reach 4500 species together? 10 000 observations? We have a list of expertise that can help out with ID so e-mail or message us on iNaturalist if you need help with particular taxonomic groups.

All the best! Long live all amazing everyday species,
Lena

Hi - the leadership team has decided that the last day to upload or update your Bioblitz observations here on the Bioblitz project will be May 31 at midnight. Still, the last day for actual observations is May 15. We just want to give everybody more time to get your photos and observations uploaded and identified.

And please, go in an help with identifications of the groups that you know at least a little about. We have plenty of observations that need. If you are unsure about an ID, put in a comment. Thanks to all of you that are helping with this.

This spring has been awfully cold, but now it is gorgeous outside. Time to look for insects and spiders (take good photos, often they are enough to ID to genus at least), lichens, fungi, spring flowers, warblers, and small things that live in water and under logs and leaves. The moths are out flying at night too, and I have seen several butterflies, tiger beetles, etc. The invertebrates, fungi, and protists are good groups to find new things.

Update on the numbers: We are about to pass 2000 species. Last year we saw about 2500 species, but that included a lot of food species, which are not allowed this year. So we need to about 500 species to break the record, and I know several of you are sitting on these species and have not yet uploaded them (Claes, hello!). As for number of observations we have already bypassed last years record. Fantastic job everybody, I hope you are learning a lot and having fun!

Lena