Nonhuman Neighbors

Every species occurrence recorded in the Global Biodiversity Information Facility for the Audubon Park neighborhood of Northeast Minneapolis, mapped where it was observed.

This visualization celebrates biodiversity on Earth by examining a small sampling of the creatures in my own backyard. Each icon marks a spot where a species was recorded, drawn as what it is, from chickadees and bumble bees to milkweed and some eighty other shapes, and tinted with the species’ estimated dominant color: cardinal red, blue-jay blue, goldfinch gold, monarch orange. Click any icon for the species behind it, with a photo where an observer shared one. Species recorded at the very same spot are scattered with a little jitter so each one stays visible. Where records are sparse, everyone appears exactly where they were seen. Where they crowd, each visit deals one random sample of the neighbors, and the deal runs from large lives down to small ones: the wide view belongs to the turkeys, herons, and raccoons; zoom in and the songbirds arrive, then the dragonflies and bees, until at close range every record is shown, down to the lichens and slime molds. The cast holds still while you move around the map: nothing swaps or shifts, and whoever greeted you at the start stays put. A fresh visit, or the resample button on the map, deals a new hand.