Honduras - iNaturalist World Tour

We're in Honduras for the 53rd stop on the iNaturalist World Tour - and apologies for the delay posting this, we were tied up celebrating 25 million observations today. The top observer is @oliverkomar, a professor at Zamorano University which is located not far from the capital of Tegucigalpa (other top observers like @danielnavarro1 are also based near here). @denilsonoz's observations are clustered in the region around Lake Yojoa which is a large lake between the cities of Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula. @anniebeez and @tomdriscoll's observations are also clustered here. @ericvandenberghe's Honduran observations are scattered throughout the country but there's a large concentration on the island of Utila off the north coast of the country. @neild's observations are also clustered on this island. @hermes is a botanist with observations centered in western Honduras in the region around Celaque National Park. @djm has observations clustered in several regions around the country. @alexanderr's observations are clustered in the mountains to the west of San Pedro Sula. Don't miss this Zombie Ant Fungus observation seen by @jonathan_kolby in Cusuco National Park near here that we featured in an Observation of the Week post.



The number of observations per month in Honduras has been ramping up since 2018. Its unclear what accounts for the peak in October, 2018 - or maybe this can be interpreted as a dip during the Christmas season? @oliverkomar's outreach to students through projects like Jardín Botánico de la EAP Zamorano have surely contributed to this growth.



The mysterious @norman-espinoza is the top identifier overall from Honduras (and the top identifier of birds). Top observer @oliverkomar is the second top identifier and leads in 5 of the categories (insects, plants, reptiles, arachnids, and fungi). @maractwin is the top fish identifier and has contributed many identifications to observations made by scuba divers around the Honduran islands. Many thanks to top idenfifiers @derick327 and @denilsonoz for contributing their local expertise, and thanks to all the other top identifiers from Honduras!



Relative to Mexico to the north and Costa Rica to the south, Honduras and its immediate neighbors often look like 'dark spots' on maps of biodiversity occurrence records. This makes observations from this relatively poorly studied country all the more important. What can we do to get more people using iNaturalist and generating biodiversity records in Honduras? Please share your thoughts below or on this forum thread

@oliverkomar @denilsonoz @ericvandenberghe @hermes @djm @anniebeez @danielnavarro1 @norman-espinoza @derick327 @maractwin

We’ll be back tomorrow in nearby Puerto Rico!

Posted on 16 de agosto de 2019, 03:10 AM by loarie loarie

Comentários

There is the OPWALL event there every year, perhaps engaging more with them could help the community grow.
https://www.opwall.com/

Publicado por alexanderr mais de 4 anos antes

Those increases in activity in the later parts of 2018 and 2019 have a lot to do with class assignments at Zamorano University. Several hundred students are assigned iNaturalist posting starting in July/August and peaking in Oct/Nov. Many thanks to Scott Loarie for highlighting the Honduras iNaturalist community in this post!

Publicado por oliverkomar mais de 4 anos antes

I'm heading here with OPWALL this summer. Hopefully I can add a lot of cool iNat observations while I'm there.

Publicado por mws mais de 4 anos antes

Wow - October was a big month in Honduras - crossed 4k observations for the first time. Any idea why?

Publicado por loarie mais de 4 anos antes

Oh wow, that is a lot. It looks like the #1 observer last month fell short of 400 observations, so it can't have been one specific person making a lot of observations.

Publicado por mws mais de 4 anos antes

Yes, I think I know why, at least in part. My students at Zamorano University, in Ecology and Biodiversity classes, are carrying out iNat homework assignments. There are more than 350 students in these two classes. Furthermore, I gave a presentation about using iNaturalist to the general assembly of the Honduran Ornithological Association. I think some other iNat users may also have been actively promoting the platform last month. Here is a link to our Zamorano campus biodiversity project, which encompasses the reports from the students, professors, and other users in the area of our campus. https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/biodiversidad-de-zamorano-universidad-2019

Publicado por oliverkomar mais de 4 anos antes

nice work @oliverkomar!

Publicado por loarie mais de 4 anos antes

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