Rarest Critters

Description

This script fetches the species counts for a specified user from the iNaturalist API and determines the top 5 taxa with the fewest total observations (the rarest "critters"). It then fetches and displays the common name if applicable, otherwise using the scientific name.

Prerequisites

• Python 3.x
• requests library

Installation

You can install the requests library using pip:

pip install requests

Usage

1. Replace the user_id variable with the actual username of the iNaturalist user you want to fetch data for.

2. Run the script:

python rarest_critter.py

Script Details

The script performs the following steps:

1. Fetches species counts for the specified user from the iNaturalist API.
2. Determines the top 5 taxa with the fewest total observations.
3. Fetches taxon information (common or scientific name) for these taxa in parallel using a thread pool.
4. Displays the taxon information along with the number of observations.

Example Output

Golden Bolete (Taxon ID: 363581): 389 observations
Johnny Cash Tarantula (Taxon ID: 501065): 447 observations
Red-mantle Saddle-back Tamarin (Taxon ID: 1368627): 482 observations
Kelp Scallop (Taxon ID: 192642): 597 observations
Coopers Chiton (Taxon ID: 130884): 683 observations

Notes

• The script uses the iNaturalist API to fetch species counts and taxon information.
• The script fetches taxon information in parallel to improve performance.
• If the common name is not available, the script uses the scientific name.