Missing Canadian Fungi

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What’s the gap?

Of the estimated 80 000 species in Canada, only about half have been recorded on iNaturalist, as highlighted in this iNaturalist blog post. This challenge specifically targets the thousands of missing fungi and lichen among them. Can you be the first to find them?

Curious about other missing species in Canada? We’ve created separate iNaturalist projects that specifically target plants, insects, and other animals - see them in our challenge list! Observations of these species will only count towards these seperate challenges.

Where should you go & what should you look for?

Missing fungi could be found across the country. For suggestions on where certain missing species could be found, check out this blogpost which maps out where they’ve been seen before.

Observations must fall within a set list of missing species, listed here.

How do you join?

By observing fungi from the above list, anywhere in Canada, your observations will count in the Missing Canadian Plants challenge.

Who made this challenge?

This challenge was inspired by an iNaturalist blog post inviting Canadians to look for Canadian species not yet recorded on the platform. The challenge was created by undergraduate students Ryan Hull, Leeya Nagpal, and Maho Horikawa from the Quantitative Biodiversity Lab, led by Laura Pollock at McGill University.