Vermont Atlas of Life iNaturalist Project 2024: A Year in Review

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January 16, 2025 by Kent McFarland

With 2024 just 18 minutes old, Craig Hunt captured the first Vermont Atlas of Life observation on his game camera, a Gray Fox sneaking past. Nearly 210,000 observations later with the clock nearly ready to turn over to 2025, Laura Spence captured the last photo of the year, an Eastern Box Elder Bug wandering inside.

The number of daily observations submitted to the Vermont Atlas of Life project on iNaturalist in 2024 shows a massive spike during the City Nature Challenge in April, weekly oscillations mostly associated with weekends, and an uptick in December that could be associated with observers on Christmas Bird Counts.

Amazing observations kept coming all year long, with the final tally rising to 209,170 observations reported by 8,247 iNaturalists. So far, we have over 111,147 research-grade observations comprising 5,068 species verified by 4,083 people from the 2024 data.

Vermont Atlas of Life box score for 2024.

Top 10 species reported to iNaturalist Vermont in 2024. Click on the image to explore at iNaturalist.

We were not alone. Vermonters joined hundreds of thousands of iNaturalists worldwide that submitted over 51 million observations in 2024! Check out the 2023 year-in-review statistics dashboard, and if you’re an iNaturalist user, you can see your year-in-review too. Share it proudly on social media and tag it with #VTAtlasOfLife.

Vermont once again led the nation with the number of verifiable observations per capita for each state in 2024. Map courtesy of user comradejon.

1.3 million records shared and counting!

Each year you have helped us gather more and more amazing biodiversity data. From rare to common, it all helps us understand the living world. All 29,017 of you that contributed data the last 11 years have helped us amass the biggest single biodiversity dataset ever assembled for Vermont. Let’s leap upward even more in 2025!

The number of observations shared with the Vermont Atlas of Life project on iNaturalist each year.

The March to 1 million research grade records!

Top 10 indentifers in 2024. Click to see the entire list and where you rank!

An observation submitted to iNaturalist becomes what is called ‘research-grade’ when it has a date, location, photos or sounds as evidence, and a 2/3 majority of agreement from the iNaturalist community identifiers. It takes a village for an observation to become research-grade. Other naturalists and scientists who can identify species help make these observations into research-grade data.

These research-grade data are shared continually with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. This international open data infrastructure allows anyone, anywhere, to access data about all types of life on Earth, shared across national boundaries via the Internet.

So far, for 2024 (identifications keep on coming!), there are now 111,201 research-grade observations representing 5,072 species. We had 4,083 naturalists and experts help identify observations in 2024 alone.

Join our Mission Million on 2025 to help us reach 1 million research grade observations. Together, we’ve made about 875,000 iNaturalist observations into Research Grade records so far. Every ID helps! Maybe you can be a top 10 identifier! Of course, we all have to be careful and only identify those observations in which we can positively identify. But everyone can help no matter how much experience you have. Learn more about the identification process and how you can help. 

Highlights of New species Discoveries in 2024

This year, iNaturalists added hundreds of new species to the database for Vermont; many of these are perhaps completely new discoveries for Vermont.

The number of new Vermont species added and verified in 2024 in iNaturalist. For some groups, especially plants, this might include some domestic or cultivated species that have not been filtered yet.

You can explore iNaturalist and find who and when the first record was reported for a species yourself. Just use the place tool for Vermont, search for a species, and mouse over the image. It will display the first observer. Click on it, and you will get a popup with the first and last sighting and more information to explore. Or explore our species accounts at the Vermont Atlas of Life. Visit the website, enter any species in the search box, and then select the name in the table that pops up. You will see the date of the first and last record for ALL data we have, not just iNaturalist, and a whole lot more!

Two-spotted Lady Beetle as an example of a VAL species account. Click on the image to visit it, and then select the history tab and see when we rediscovered this lost species!

A few highlights of species that caught our attention in 2024

A New Tiger Beetle
Larry Clarfeld found the first record  for Vermont of a Ghost Tiger Beetle (Ellipsoptera lepida) visiting a sheet at his moth light. Tiger beetles have been fairly well-studied in the state, yet this is the first record for this species for Vermont!

Named for their light to white coloration, the Ghost Tiger Beetle is considered ‘vulnerable’ to extinction globally. It requires bare and deep sandy areas, such as dunes or shorelines, which are patchily distributed across its range. These sandy habitats are often lost to development or degraded, which has resulted in population loss and declines.

Adults emerge in the summer (as early as mid-June) and begin hunting, mating, and laying eggs. They are usually gone by the end of August. The larvae burrow deeper (5-10 feet) than most other tiger beetle species and require deep, loose, and sparsely vegetated sandy areas.

Although we don’t yet know if there is a breeding population in Vermont, there are areas of potential habitat near this sighting. Adults are known to come to lights at night up to a mile or two from their habitat and they are known to colonize new, artificial habitats up to 30 miles away. Next year we will visit some potential habitat in the region and see if we can find a small population of these amazing beetles.

New Moth Reported During the Annual Vermont Moth Week Blitz

Hops Angleshade (Niphonyx segregata) found by Erin Talmage.

A new species of moth was recorded for Vermont during the Vermont Atlas of Life annual Vermont Moth Blitz week. A Hops Angleshade (Niphonyx segregata) was photographed and shared to our project on iNaturalist by Erin Talmage on 28 July and identified by taxonomic experts JoAnn Russo and Chris Schmidt.

It was believed to be introduced into New York City area in the late 1990s from East Asia. As the common name suggests, the larval host plant are hops (Humulus spp.), a well-known plant to the home brewers among us.

A New Warbler Found on Fall Migration
The first record of a Black-throated Gray Warbler for Vermont was reported by several birders from Herrick’s Cove in October. It was found with a flock of about 25 Myrtle Warblers foraging in birch trees. The Black-throated Gray Warbler is a short- to medium-distance migrant, moving from its breeding areas in the western United States only as far south as Mexico. Migrating warblers follow mountain ranges and the Pacific coastline southward. Despite these landmarks, some get lost and turn up every year in the eastern states.

Rare Sighting of Canada Lynx in Vermont and First Record on iNaturalist for the State
A rare native wild cat—the Canada Lynx—was confirmed in Vermont for the first time since 2018 from video recorded on August 17 in Rutland County, according a Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department press release. Another sighting was reported to the Vermont Atlas of Life on iNaturalist in the same region on August 20th and was likely the same individual. Canada Lynx are Endangered in Vermont and Threatened nationally. Vermont is on the southernmost edge of the their range.  Most confirmed sightings are from the Northeast Kingdom, which supports the best climate, habitat and food sources for lynx in the state. Since 2016 the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department has received over 160 reports of lynx, but only seven of these were confirmed.  The most recent credible report was from Jericho in 2018.

Beech Leaf Disease Reports Explode Across Vermont

Beech Leaf Disease reports to iNaturalist in 2024. Click on map to explore more.

Beech Leaf Disease (BLD), a new disease caused by an invasive worm-like nematode (Litylenchus creatae mccannii), was first detected in Vermont in 2023. Beginning in May with leafout, the first reports to iNaturalist began and as the season progressed, observations came from many sites.

BLD affects buds and foliage of all species of beech trees, leading to leaf striping and loss as well as reduced leaf and bud production. While beech trees of all ages and size are susceptible to the disease, younger understory beech trees are thought to be more vulnerable. As beech trees are one of Vermont’s five most common tree species, provide important food and nesting sites for wildlife, and play a key role in Vermont’s forests, the potential loss threatens to disrupt forest ecosystems and biodiversity.

First detected in 2012 in Ohio, BLD has rapidly spread across the Northeast U.S. and Canada. Researchers are actively exploring management options, but many questions remain unanswered, including how it spreads.

In the early detection stages of BLD, look for dark striping between leaf veins with the darkened area being slightly raised and thicker than normal leaf tissues along with crispy empty buds. As the disease advances, leaves will become stripped, yellow, curled and shriveled, leading to premature leaf drop, death of branches, and full tree mortality. Learn more about Beech Leaf Disease at Vermont Invasives.

Explore the 2024 Photo-Observation of the Month Winners

Each month, iNaturalist users ‘fav’ any observation they like as a vote for the VAL iNaturalist photo-observation of the month. Check out the winners from 2024 (and other years, too!) and learn a little bit about the natural history of each organism.