Annual Report

This project has been blossoming, so I thought it would be fun to do a little observation data filtering to see how the project has grown. It is great that iNaturalist makes this so easy. It probably took me 5-10 minutes to gather this information. The calendar year is not complete yet and there will be some more additions, but I don't expect the species number to change much between now and December 31. Without further ado, here are the numbers:

Clearly we had a big swell in observations this year! It paid off with more new species added to the project this year than any past year. I suspect that even if we have more observers and more observations next year, we'll start to slow down on the species added as we asymptotically approach the true species count for the state. We honestly don't know what the number is, but I would venture to guess that we're around 3/4 of the way there.

Another contributor to our large number of observations this year is that we had TWELVE moth nights scheduled this year, ranging from early April through mid October. Most of these were at the same location in east Norman, but we also had the National Moth Week events in southwest and northeast Oklahoma and a moth night at the Oklahoma BioBlitz in eastern Oklahoma.

Some things I am excited about in the years to come are getting more people involved in the project and filling in the gaps around our state. There are certainly moths in every county, and yet the records in many counties are pretty sparse, both on iNaturalist and in the official state records. Let's fill 'em in!

Posted on October 29, 2019 01:10 PM by zdufran