NBN record numbers

1

I often come across species with 100 or so records or less on NBN
So, I´m a little confused about how these records work…

Is this because

  1. I am very lucky
  2. These species are under recorded
  3. My local area is a special place
  4. I am misunderstanding something about NBN
  5. A combination of all of the above
2

Some examples:-

This has 130 records on NBN


I found this weevil on my window sill…

This has 116 records on NBN


This spider hitched a lift in our car while travelling…
3

There can be a whole variety of reasons why there are only limited numbers of records on NBN. The species could be genuinely rare, there could be issues with the name and synonyms, there may be no recording scheme or the recording scheme may not have uploaded much or all of their data, there may be very few people who can identify the species accurately and I am sure many other reasons.

4

Incidentally I have found quite a number of ‘common’ species in areas that are little visited so they appear to be new records.
There is one possible interesting new record here https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/observation/785479/skipper no NBN records within a large distance if it is indeed the species that it appears to be. Difficult to explain this one if the identification is correct.

5

Interesting. Yes, I did wonder about regional variation in record-collecting.
There does often seem to be a blank patch in my area.
The 100 or so record ones I mentioned are nationally low numbers though.

I just had an ichneumon ID´d on iRecord which only has 16 records on NBN!
This one kind of makes sense, as you say due to few people being able to identify the species.

I am still getting to grips with how the recording schemes work also.
Seems to be a lot of variation there. Arachnids seem quite difficult to log - iRecords in my county don’t get verified and britishspiders website pretty vague.

I am discussing with regional records just sending everything I find to them.
Do the regional records centres log their records regardless of whether there is a national scheme in place for the family?

Where do I go to find out if a species is genuinely considered nationally scarce?
I see people mention terms like X records per hectare or something…would be curious to be able to place my “rare” finds in this context.

Thanks!

6

I think that if you have exhausted NBN you would then try to contact the recording scheme for that taxon, you might also try NHM in London or regional museums such as the one in Oxford for certain taxa.

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7

There is a table on the JNCC website that gives the current national status (Endangered, Near threatened, etc) for all species which have been assessed. Some quite large groups have never had such an assessment, e.g. sawflies.

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