We’re excited to share iNaturalist impact highlights from November 2023! If you missed last month's highlights you can find them here.

Our theme this month is amateurs and professionals working together on iNaturalist. Entomology Today's coverage of a recent study by @michaelskvarla and @rayfisher reveals how access to iNaturalist data is transforming entomology research. We’re thrilled the scientific community is finding value in iNaturalist because engagement by experts is the catalyst for so much of the learning and impact coming out of the iNaturalist community. This theme of experts and amateurs working together on iNaturalist to make discoveries is beautifully captured in this story from Rhode Island featuring @landarch202, @jameswaters, @rbonoan and others. Similarly, this story on amateurs and experts sharing their excitement for sea slugs in Ireland features @bernardpicton, @libbykeatley and @tgosliner.

Science Discoveries

Meet Inimia nat or "I. nat" for short, a new species of Mantid named in honor of iNaturalist. This article describes @matthew_connors and @glendawalter’s collaboration that made this discovery possible. Keeping with our theme of scientists and amateurs working together to advance science, we’re honored @matthew_connors described the name choice as “a tribute to a new way of doing natural science”.

Other new species included a Panamanian grasshopper that went from being posted by @squiresk to being published by @kasalo, @skejo and colleagues in the short span of 9-months, a new bee from the Canary Islands thanks to the efforts of @carlathus, a new Zimbabwe orchid described in part by a posting by @bartwursten, and a new California scorpion posted by @brianhindsakafundad and described by @prakrit and colleagues.

There were also several first-living-photographs such as this Brazilian butterfly that was first photographed by @lcmarinho1 and this Chilean beetle first photographed by @mgargiulo complementing a new species description by @jlreyeshdez

Range Extensions

Keeping with our theme of experts and amateurs working together, we loved this story on @betweenthelyons, @dneubauer and others working together to discover a disjunct population of a rare plant in California.

There were many other stories this month documenting range extensions with iNaturalist including this profile on Montana State University researcher @cdelphia’s discovery of two new introduced bees. Other notable range extension stories included a southern hemisphere sea anemone found in California by @rjadams55, a frog island hopping from Trinidad to Tobago spotted by @wildlife_tobago, Blue Land Crabs moving up the coast into South Carolina, a wasp range expansion in Ukraine and a range expansion of a rare Peony in Russia.

Even more fundamental than documenting shifts in distributions, many studies use iNaturalist to advance basic understandings of species distributions. For example, this study used iNaturalist to fill in gaps in a cosmopolitan spider’s distribution across Mexico. Similar studies helped describe the Mexican distributions of nightshade and amaranth. Stories relayed @paul_crump’s use of iNaturalist to understand the distribution and rarity of indigo snakes in Texas, @kylieafrancis’s work understanding slime mold distributions in Australia, and @paul_prior’s record of a locally uncommon butterfly in the Toronto region. Other stories covered efforts to understand the ranges of endangered Whooping Cranes in Texas, threatened Whitebark Pines in Canada, rare Short Bigeyes off Martha’s Vineyard, and declining Monarch butterflies in California.

Invasive Species Science

When range expansions become detrimental to the ecosystems they move into, they can be considered invasive species. This study describes ecologist’s @matthewmo back and forth with observers on iNaturalist to document a newly established population of snapping turtles in Hong Kong.

Other stories and studies highlighted monitoring invasive insects and invasive plants in Spain, @jess_likes_bugs’s work promoting the Invasive Species Council Bug Hunt in Australia, the dispersal of invasive weedy plants in Argentina, and @ccutting’s work controlling invasive Giant Hogweed on Prince Edward Island.

We loved this New York Times story highlighting @krystalrose13’s work monitoring invasive marine invertebrates in Connecticut with iNaturalist. We also noticed more stories this month on using iNaturalist to track the invading Joro spiders in USA today and Al.com.

Life History Science

iNaturalist data is very useful for understanding the life histories of species. For example, this study by @chrisrmoreira highlights the use of iNaturalist to understand the life stages and host plants of butterflies and moths from Ecuador.

Likewise, this presentation by @antomology used iNaturalist data to understand larval insects known as leafminers and their host plants while this paper by @tracysfeldman used iNaturalist images to understand how to distinguish sawfly larvae. On the subject of host plants, we loved @bradleyallf’s whoeatswhom.org mashup using iNaturalist data to surface interactions between species and the species they eat.

Other stories involving iNaturalist on the life histories of species included this article on the sex life of Lobelias by @matthewcoffey, this story on juvenile newt migrations in California, and this story on the unfortunate death by stranding of Ocean Sunfish in Australia.

Land Use and Climate Change Science

Don't miss this article on @hoosierherpenthusiast’s efforts using iNaturalist to understand bird deaths from window collisions on Purdue campus.

This month there were several other studies on how changes to the landscape impact bird populations ranging from the diversity of birds in Colombia to the reintroduction of a hornbill in Singapore.

In this story covering a Nature Ecology & Evolution study on understanding species sensitivities to climate change, the authors encourage the use of iNaturalist to generate the kinds of distribution data their analysis relied on.

Conservation and Monitoring

This Public Radio piece profiled @shawnhunter’s efforts using iNaturalist to protect the Diana Fritillary. According to @shawnhunter insecticide use to eliminate the invasive Spongy moth is one of the drivers causing Diana Fritillary to decline. In a recent talk, @joe8, the host of Growing a Greener World, described how using iNaturalist to distinguish beneficial from detrimental insects can help gardeners reduce their use of pesticides.

There were many other stories about the use of iNaturalist for conservation and monitoring including this study by @thea30, @maribritt and colleagues describing their work with the Minnesota Bee Atlas to help inventory and monitor bees across Minnesota.

This story on a recent paper by @johnascher and colleagues describes a new workflow for moving from iNaturalist and other GBIF datasets to conservation assessments for bees. Similarly, this paper describes using iNaturalist in Diptera recording schemes across Europe.

Other studies and stories described using iNaturalist to inventory butterflies in Ecuador, @marco_varricchione and colleagues work monitoring marine species in Italy, @astyles and colleagues work inventorying the Basin and Range National Monument in Nevada, and @kkrievins and colleagues work monitoring lake surgeon in Canada’s Shawanaga First Nation Georgian Bay Biosphere Reserve.

iNaturalist Impact on AI Research

We continue to be awed by all the exciting new research combining iNaturalist images in new AI analysis tools. We’re calling this the "Phenotypic Revolution" as it mirrors the Genomic Revolution in the 2000’s that led to rapid advances in the fields of Ecology and Evolution. Last month we highlighted machine learning insights into mimicry of spiders, this month we're highlighting a fantastic paper covered in Science Magazine that analyzed iNaturalist images in a machine learning model to reveal the evolution of striking eye-colors in cats.

The iNat dataset continues to be a standard benchmarking dataset in numerous AI papers such as one by Mansfield et al. and this one by Liang et al. and is even used in research on Generative AI. This interesting article discusses the impact of the the AI revolution and tools like iNaturalist on environmental, social and governance jobs.

iNaturalist and Social Science

An article in Nature Human Behavior that was covered by MongaBay and the New York Times shows how past discriminatory housing policies continues to resulted in fewer bird sightings using iNaturalist and eBird data. Similarly, this paper used iNaturalist data to understand nature based recreation patterns on Malta.

Other creative used of iNaturalist data to understand human behavior included this paper characterizing the insect species mentioned in Haikus, and this paper using Network Analysis techniques to understand patterns in a subset of the iNaturalist community from Western Canada.

November iNaturalist Events

There was great coverage of the 2023 Great Southern Bioblitz in articles about activities in Coffs Harbour, Australia, featuring @nicklambert and in Geelong, Australia, featuring @rover-rod. We enjoyed coverage of @charlottekirchner and colleagues use of iNaturalist on Hurtigruten Expeditions to Antarctica and coverage of @edenea and @dnolan6’s organizing the Fall 2023 George Mason University Bioblitz.

iNaturalist’s Education Impact

iNaturalist continues to be used in classrooms around the globe including this Biology course in Slovenia and this Biostatistics course in Pennsylvania. This study by @natashacerettimaria and @matheusmsantos describes their work using iNaturalist to promote environmental education in urban parks in Brazil. This story profile’s @brentpease’s work integrating iNaturalist into Southern Illinois University's Wildlife Monitoring courses by organizing Bioblitzes.

Thanks to everyone who hosted iNaturalist trainings this month including @milliebasden, @patsimpson2000, and @markkjames in San Diego, @twainwright through the Oregon Native Plant Society, and @akilee in Massachusetts.

iNatters in the News

We loved this profile on @anthcolangelo and his work getting the public using iNaturalist to monitor pollinators through the Pollinator Partnership Canada. Don’t miss this podcast where @sheriff_woody_pct shares fun flora facts. This story profiles iNatters @sunfishmoonlight and @mendelskulski’s work hosting the Future Ecology podcast series.

This story profiles @varad’s work organizing citizen-scientists in India and this story profiles @orwinr and @lindy4 use of iNaturalist and other platforms at this year’s Australian Citizen Science conference. We loved this story by @klpbenson about an encounter with a strange caterpillar.

On the subject of ecotourism, this story profile’s @amymoonlady’s work promoting nature tourism in Texas while this video shows highlights from a recent ecotourism expedition across Nigeria by @agboola, @omotee and others.

Thank you to everyone who participated in iNaturalist this November! Your support makes it all possible.

Donate to iNaturalist

We released a new computer vision model yesterday. It has 82,023 taxa up from 80,962. This new model (v2.9) was trained on data exported on October 15th.

Here's a graph of the models release schedule since early 2022 (segments extend from data export date to model release date) and how the number of species included in each model has increased over time.

Here is a sample of new species added to v2.9:

• Fungi
• Aves
• Plantae
• Arachnida
• Other Animalia
• Mollusca
• Actinopterygii
• Reptilia
• Insecta
• Amphibia
• Mammalia

Our Observation of the Week is this Southern Right Whale Dolphin (Lissodelphis peronii), seen off of the French Southern Territories by @adrien-pajot!

“I have been interested in nature since I was young, thanks to my parents and particularly my father,” says Adrien Pajot, who currently works with WILDLABS, an organization that aids conservation through technology. “Then, an internship when I was 12 at the local protected area of the island I live on really started my passion for birds.”

About four years ago, through an internship with the CEBC, Adrien had the opportunity to visit the French Southern Territories of Crozet, Kerguelen and Amsterdam - it takes about a month of boat travel, back and forth, for these visits. 

After tagging Wandering Albatrosses for a month in Kerguelen, they headed back to Réunion via Amsterdam Island. 

The journey between Kerguelen and Amsterdam island is very famous for marine mammals because of underwater topography and upwelling, but the Lissodelphis dolphins are not commonly seen at all. Since I have discovered this species in the book Mammifères marins du monde, I have dreamed many times of seeing them.

The two first days of the way back (23rd and 24th of December) gave no Lissodelphis but wonderful observations of pelagic birds. I was a bit disappointed because on the 24th, we reached what was supposed to be the best area for marine mammals for the whole trip. But it was already dark and we were going to cross this area by night, with only a few hours the following morning to try our luck.

And, on the 24th of December, we had an amazing and long night, celebrating Christmas. The party ended at 2am for me and I hesitated to set my alarm for 4am, considering the very small window for marine mammal sightings. But I ended up setting it, early as usual. The alarm woke me up and I took my camera and binoculars to go to the upper deck - I was still slightly under some effects of alcohol and lack of sleep.

After thirty minutes, magic happened. I saw splashes coming from the left part of the boat, and I instantly understood that they were the dreamed-of dolphins. I totally panicked. I took 30 dark pictures because my settings were horrible [see example above], then I managed to calm down and take a few good pictures. I was alone with the captain on the deck and hesitated to ask him to wake up people in the boat. The dolphins left one or two minutes after their appearance.

I felt both happiness about this extraordinary observation on Christmas day and disappointment that my teammates were not woken up. But it was probably one of the best gifts I’ve ever had.

One of two species in the genus Lissodelphis, southern right whale dolphins are slim oceanic dolphins that lack a dorsal fin. Right whales also lack dorsal fins, so it’s thought the common name might originate in that similarity. Not too much is known about their natural history.

An avid eBirder, Adrien (above, in Costa Rica) says he uses iNaturalist for his “random” non-bird observations. 

iNaturalist helps me a lot in diversifying my identification skills. Before, I was mainly focused on birds and marine mammals. But now, I want to contribute everything I see in the various places I visit. The growing community of iNaturalist is really wonderful and, because I work in this field, I know that participatory sciences are important, how difficult it is to get high quality data, and how iNaturalist manages to answers both issues with their fantastic application and website.

(Quotes were modified for clarity)

- Southern right whale dolphins are not often seen playing off of ships, but here's some footage of a pod doing just that.

- in addition to living in a different hemisphere, northern right whale dolphins have less white coloration than their southern counterparts.

Our Observation of the Week is this Opeatogenys gracilis fish (Porte-écuelle grêle in French), seen in Algeria by @sammykernane!

“When I go to the beach or hiking with friends, I'm always looking for local fauna and flora,” says Sammy Kernane, an 2nd year hydrobiology student living in Oran, Algeria. “And when they see what I do, even my non-naturalist friends start assisting me in my research! Which is very gratifying, because my other goal is to show people the beauty of nature and making them want to know more. This is what I aim for when I publish my pictures on social media.”

Sammy came across the fish you see here while free diving at Mers El Hadjaj, it was sitting in a bed of Caulerpa prolifera algae. He took the photos in a DIY setup, which allows him to get some great detail.

A clingfish, Opeatogenys gracilis’s pectoral fins are fused together to form a suction cup, which it uses to stick to algae and other surfaces. It’s tiny (3 cm/1.2 in long) and is found in the Mediterranean Sea and the Northern Atlantic. 

“I was interested in nature from a very young age,” says Sammy (above). 

Observing critters, drawing them, learning and writing about their behavior were my main hobbies…I was also a big fan of documentaries ! My dream job was to be an “adventurer” like those we see on National Geographic. Naturally, I was drawn to biology, and more precisely marine biology.

I use inaturalist for identifying the species I encounter, whether by the community or the bot. Algerian databases of such small species are lacking, so I generally use data from neighboring countries. And as a side quest, I'm aiming to climb the observers ranking, haha. Which encourages me to expand my interest to other taxa!

(Photo of Sammy by Adel Kifirofski. Some quote have been edited for clarity.)

- you can follow Sammy on Instagram here!

This is the twenty-first entry in an ongoing monthly (or almost monthly!) series profiling the amazing identifiers of iNaturalist.

Maëlan and Nataël Adam are eighteen year-old twin brothers residing in the French town of Châlons-en-Champagne, “located in the middle of the cereal plains of the Grand Est region in France,” says Nataël. They’ve always been passionate about nature, he tells me, 

But it was when we entered high school, about three years ago, for a professional baccalaureate in Management of Natural Environment and Wildlife, that we really became interested in animals. Our grandfather told us about iNaturalist, and it was at this time that we joined iNaturalist and started taking photos of every animal we saw, even though we didn't know much about them. We only knew the basics, like ladybugs, ants, and snails.

We learned to identify different species only recently (a little over two years ago) thanks to iNaturalist. From then on, we started going to the forest near our school almost every day of the week to observe and try to identify the different species we came across.

Maëlan and Nataël have now added over 22,000 IDs for other users on iNaturalist, mostly focusing on snails but also adding IDs for other taxa. Nataël explains,

The variety of shapes and beauty of the different species of snails in our school interested us and the more we learned about molluscs, the more it interested us. We have therefore “specialized” in molluscs (gastropods) but other animals, fungi and plants also interest us…

Identifying other people's observations allows me to practice differentiating species and remembering the various identification criteria. This also helps other people differentiate species, which is why I sometimes post comments to explain why it is one species and not another.

When identifying, the twins will try to get as many “easy” IDs out of the way as possible, and also look through other observations to add correct observations. When they’re stumped, they use the French website INPN, Estran22, and iNat itself. “It is very difficult to find documents on rare species,” laments Maëlan, who does try to get identifications to the species level if possible.

The twins continue to post observations and make IDs, and Maëlan’s ambitions include describing new snail species, such as those found in springs, groundwater, and caves, and writing papers about them. In addition to gastropods, Nataël’s interests also include other soil fauna, such as spiders, mites, springtails, etc). 

(Photos: Above, Maëlan, below, Nataël. Thank you to @sylvainmorin for translation help. Some quotes have been edited for clarity.)

- Nataël’s advice for making identifiable snail observations: “take at least three photos of the three main faces (for example: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/184729733). If possible, measure its size, clean the shell (which I don't do 😅) and specify the environment where it was found (marsh, meadow, ponds, etc.).”

- if you want to collect shells, and it’s legal do so, Maëlan has some tips: “empty shells can still be useful. I would just like to point out that you have to be careful if it is a protected species, check that there is nothing alive inside the shell and not take too much, especially on the beaches where they help reform the sand.”

- Maëlan’s favorite snail taxa: “my favorite families are Moitessieriidae, Bythinellidae, Cochlostomatidae and Clausiliidae. They are incredible families. For those who do not live in Europe, I will explain the Moitessieriidae and the Bythinellidae: these are two families of snails which live mainly in groundwater and springs, and about which very little is known, with almost only endemic and micro-endemic species that are sometimes only found in a single source or a single well...in the world.”

- Nataël’s favorite snail taxa: “my favorite gastropods (in France) are the Chondrinidae (terrestrial), the Moitessieriidae and the Bythinellidae (freshwater aquatic) and Mangeliidae and the Raphitomidae (marine). Among all gastropods, I prefer the rarest and/or endemic species. In addition, they are often the most impressive species, such as Neniatlanta pauli, a Clausiliidae, which is truly impressive for France.”

- Australian user @thebeachcomber (who's identified a lot of molluscs) goes over seven reasons to identify observations on iNaturalist in this video.

Our Observation of the Week is the first known documentation of a female Ovalimantis maculata mantis! Seen in Brazil by @ninawenoli.

Nina Wenóli, a music teacher who lives in the town of Uberlândia in Brazil, describes herself as “just a bird watcher who also records the beauties of the animal world with light.”

Her interest in birds started about seven years ago.

I decided to take a jungle behavior course and it changed my life. I started photographing birds in Brazil, but I have already visited other nearby countries as well. Today I have recorded 1,400 species of birds from Brazil alone. The time I spend in contact with nature makes me feel really good, and I intend to continue participating in photographic expeditions for a long time.

During the pandemic she started photographing insects in an empty lot by her house, and that’s when she found iNaturalist. “It was very good, because even without me knowing the genera and species, people from different parts of Brazil and the world made contact, correcting my posts and guiding me privately,” Nina says. “I started to become interested in other forms of life and recording them.”

In October, Nina traveled to Amapá, the only Brazilian state she had yet to visit, on an expedition.

The Amazon Rainforest presents many difficulties for photographing birds, and between one bird photo and the next I kept photographing butterflies, flowers, fungi, various insects, rocks, lichens and trees, because the biodiversity in the region is very rich. I live in the Cerrado, which is a very different biome, so I took advantage of my situation and photographed everything I saw when time allowed. One afternoon this mantis appeared [on my friend’s back] and I managed to photograph it with my cell phone…I realized it was very handsome and very strange. I took a few photos, so as not to disturb the animal, and then placed it on a nearby branch.

Nina (above) posted her photos on December 2nd and it caused quite a stir among the mantis experts on iNaturalist. She writes,

A few hours later, I received messages from several entomologists and iNaturalist followers, delighted with the post. I say sincerely, I am very happy and grateful for this opportunity to contribute to science.

I contacted a few of the entomologists who commented on Nina’s observation and heard back from Julio (@piskomantis) and Antonio (@mondodellemantidi). They tell me that this species was described in 2015, and only from a male specimen found in French Guiana. A female had never been documented until Nina’s iNaturalist observation and, says Antonio,

The observation of a female Ovalimantis published on iNaturalist immediately aroused the interest of mantis enthusiasts who frequent the platform. We were literally amazed, also by the particular shape of the body of this mantis, not comparable to that of any other…Globally, this observation will help us better understand the biodiversity of South American insects, and will be very useful as the only photographic documentation of a female of Ovalimantis, similar to what happened a few months ago with the uploading on this platform of the observation of an adult female of Amphecostephanus sp., an African mantis of which only male specimens were known and photographed (and, ironically, this mantis is also extremely mimetic and similar to a dry leaf with a showy process on the head!!)

Julio chimes in on the importance of finding a female:

The discovery is remarkable because many praying mantis species are known only from males, which can differ significantly from females. The sexual dimorphism, or differences between males and females, is pronounced in praying mantises, and both sexes are essential for a comprehensive understanding of their taxonomy.

Ovalimantis maculata is currently in the family Acanthopidae, and Julio says 

Praying mantises are challenging to classify based on morphology, especially when a species possesses unique characteristics not shared with others. This is precisely the case with Ovalimantis maculata, known for its extremely short thorax with a unique conformation among all tropical American mantises. It also has a disproportionately large head, with distinctive projections and horns not observed in any other species. Due to the uniqueness of its morphology, genetic studies are necessary to classify Ovalimantis maculata more accurately. We are likely dealing with a completely new lineage of acanthopoids.

Not only is it the first known documented female of the species, its location also extends the range into Brazil - not bad for a mantis found on a friend’s back!

Julio and Antonio also stressed how important iNat is to their work. 

Antonio:

I am a mantis enthusiast who studies and does independent research on these insects, also collaborating with other scholars. I use the platform mainly to identify mantis specimens of all over the world and monitor the distribution of those that I study in more detail, including the alien species of the Hierodula genus that have invaded Europe for some years. 

Julio (who also runs the Os Louva-a-Deus do Rio de Janeiro project):

In recent years, especially since the pandemic, I have extensively used iNaturalist, and it has become a fundamental tool in my work studying the diversity of praying mantises in tropical America. Praying mantises are challenging to observe, collect, and have low population densities…

On iNaturalist, I have observed numerous new records, undescribed species, and even new genera awaiting formal scientific discovery. I also use iNaturalist to obtain images of specimens for my research, which aims to incorporate artificial intelligence tools into the study of praying mantis biodiversity by professional and citizen scientists. This work is conducted in partnership with the Montreal Insectarium and the Université de Montreal, Quebec, Canada. In summary, iNaturalist is an immensely helpful tool for my studies of these wonderful and elusive insects, and I continually seek new ways to incorporate it into my research.  

(Photo of Nina by Elizete Nogueira Barbosa. Thank you to @luis2 and @patriciatiago for some translation help. Some quotes have been modified for clarity.)

- acanthopid mantids are truly remarkable, check out the most faved observations of them!

- a newly described Australian mantis was named in honor of iNat!

(Rajendra “Raju” Singh Koranga (@rajkoranga) was featured in a video about iNat a few months ago, and @abhasm on the iNat team was able to summarize it for us. I found Raju’s story compelling, so I reached out to him for a profile on the iNat Blog. Raju looped in @ram_k, who’s been doing a lot of great work building the iNat community in India. Raju wrote his answers by hand in Hindi and Ram translated them into English for me. I want to thank them both for taking the time and effort to do that, and for their contributions to iNat.)

“We live in a place where from the morning itself birds constantly call,” says Raju, a farmer and nature guide from the Munsiari area in India’s Uttarakhand state. As a child, Raju and his friends and family roamed the countryside, collected food, and played in the forest. 

At about age 16 I became a forest watcher for our village forest council (Van Panchayat). Due to family responsibilities I could not continue studying and needed to work. Our village forest is about 80 hectares and I was responsible to protect it (or alert my elders) from illegal grazing, illegal grass and fodder collection, and to generally ensure nothing untoward was happening in our village forest. This gave me the chance to look at the forest even more deeply: at plants, wildlife, and birds. For many of these we have local names but I did not know any of their English names.

Later, in 2004, Raju joined a nature and outdoor tourism program in his village and was trained in mountaineering and trek leadership. Since then his larger combined village started a nature and culture festival, which has grown to encompass a bird festival and a butterfly and moth festival. 

These festivals brought us in touch with experts and interested people from whom we learnt a lot. We also started to get access to more material (books, pamphlets etc) and also started to get work as field assistants and nature guides. All of this has increased both my interest in nature and also gives me some extra earning opportunities. 

Raju has now leads several nature treks a year and is getting consistent work doing high altitude snow leopard camera trapping and conservation.  

Through this snow leopard project we got opportunities to live and deeply explore the high altitude pastures and learn from shepherds and from families who migrate every summer to the seasonal alpine villages. We also had some very senior scientists who came and taught us about plants, and also a little bit about mammals which helped me understand even more about nature.

And starting in April of 2022, Raju has been working with India’s Nature, a small informal (and unfunded) group doing nature education and outreach. 

He first heard about iNaturalist in 2020 but did not have a phone he could use with it, so only uploaded sparingly via a computer. The next year, Ram started training a few men in Raju’s village (including Raju and also @babloo_farswan, and @k_pawan). Raju says

Very soon I saw how much they were learning because of using iNaturalist and eBird and how soon they were able to improve their knowledge, and also how many interesting things they were seeing and sharing. I too was seeing all these but apart from WhatsApp I could not really share them and more importantly could not collect all my photos in one place.

Since 2021, after I bought a new phone, I really started using iNaturalist a lot and focused on diverse groups of life that I could record on my phone (butterflies, moths, beetles, amphibians, fungi, bird calls, and even a musk deer).

I also started taking part in iNaturalist events like Big Butterfly Month, Monsoon Beauty, etc. In the 2021 Monsoon Beauty event I posted 2,888 observations and came in 3rd overall (and 1st among Rural Observers). For this I got some books and pamphlets as a gift. Meanwhile I was also given a butterfly book, bird book, plant book (and later mammal book, moths book etc). iNaturalist combined with eBird, the Merlin app and the books made it easy for me to know what I was seeing and how to share them.

With over 16,000 observations, Raju is now the top iNat observer in Uttarakhand, and uses iNaturalist when doing his alpine work as well as his work with India’s Nature. As a nature guide, he mostly was focusing on birds and butterflies, the interests of most clients, but tells me

Because of iNaturalist I now look at everything and I also like beetles very much. I have also started to look at moths too. My favourite areas are in the oak forest around my home and in the alpine areas both close by (half a day's walk) and further away (3 days walk).

The alpine areas have a lot of special/new organisms which we don’t see elsewhere. Many interesting plants, some birds, butterflies and a lot more. But of late I have not been able to go to the further away alpine areas. In May this year I was part of a team and went to an alpine area I had previously visited and we saw a lot of interesting birds and plants.

Raj was “born to a farming family and that is the traditional and main occupation of most people in our village,” he says, “and my whole family is involved in farming work.” So he spends much of his time farming but takes guide work when he can. “Work is very hard to get so earlier whatever work I could get I would take,” he explains. “Now with India’s Nature I have more security so I can work on both my farm as well as nature observation/nature education work.”

(Some quotes have been lightly edited for clarity.)

- you can read another profile of Raju in this journal post by Ram, including some of his most interesting and unique observations, and following him on Instagram here.

- Raju is a signatory and practitioner of an Uttarakhand Nature Guide Ethical Guidelines 

- Uttarakhand is home to India’s first “lichen park”!

- check out some of the most-faved iNat observations in Uttarakhand!

Season's greetings, everyone! As we wrap up the final month of 2023, we're excited to present highlights from December. If you missed out on last month's updates, you can catch up here.

We’ve chosen Christmas Beetles as our theme this month as a reminder that despite being cold and dormant in much of the northern hemisphere, December is summer in much of the Southern Hemisphere. As described in this article by @hauke_koch, @tardigrade_tanya, @thebeachcomber and colleagues, December welcomes the arrival of these iconic native beetles in Australia, and iNaturalist is helping monitor them. The endangered Christmas Beetle story also has an interesting invasive species subplot involving look-alike Argentinian scarabs. Scroll down for more highlights from the past month. Happy reading!

Species Discoveries

New species described
Also in Australia, @russellbarrett and colleagues noticed color and shape differences in observations of a plant posted by @scottwgavins, @gsinclair, and @tjeales which led to these populations being described as a new species. These color and shape characters often don’t preserve well in museum specimens meaning this new species went unnoticed for hundreds of years. In a very similar story from the Americas, @tom_daniel compared iNaturalist observations of Mexican and Costa Rican populations of a plant side by side and noticed differences that led to the Mexican populations being described as a distinct species.

Lost species rediscovered
A Mexican sage was described over 100 years ago and hadn’t been seen since until @betootero posted an observation of one. @xanergo published the rediscovery in Phytotaxa this month. Again, in a very similar story, a cockroach species was described from a specimen with the vague label of “Central America'' and hadn’t been relocated until observations were noticed on iNaturalist. @josuergg and colleagues published the rediscovery here. Likewise, this article highlights iNaturalist’s role in the rediscovery in Andean plants thought to be extinct for 100 years.

First living photographs
After @cisnerosheredia posted this striking insect observation, @wongun and others identified what turned out to represent the first known photographs of the insect in life. @cisnerosheredia published the discovery here. This project contains over 6,000 other such examples of first known photographs of species on iNaturalist.

Range Extensions and Distributions

Range Extensions
Keeping with our beetle theme, this month’s issue of the Coleopterists Bulletin alone included three papers confirming new state records of 3 different beetle species first reported on iNaturalist: a rove beetle in Illinois, a ground beetle in Washington, and a weevil in Canada. Likewise, this publication reports @nastya_klimova’s observation of the first recent record of a bird in Russia.

Improving Distributions
This story recounts the discovery of the Olinguito by @rolandisimo and colleagues and the ongoing role iNaturalist plays in helping the authors better understand its distribution. Similarly, this report describes how @marianneleroux, @jboatwright and other members of CREW use an iNaturalist project to better understand the distribution of Silverpods in South Africa. iNaturalist observations formed important pieces of puzzles for understanding the range of a butterfly in Europe and Underwing moths in Canada.

Invasive Species Science

We already mentioned the Christmas beetle look-alike Argentinian scarab invading Australia (hint, these aren’t Christmas beetles). Other stories from this month about using iNaturalist for invasive species science included this study on invasion risk from a weed in Ecuador by @edulg, @ileanaherrera and colleagues. This video on new invasive species in Georgia features @joseph136 and the iNaturalist app for reporting sightings. Tracking the spread of invasive Joro Spiders on iNaturalist got more coverage this month in the New York Times. Other stories involving tracking invasive species on iNaturalist included invasive nudibranchs in Long Island Sound, tracking exotic ferns in South America, and an invasive slug in Poland.

Conservation and Monitoring

Urban biodiversity
In a relatively small Australian suburban yard, @rqy-yong and @matthew_holden surprised their colleagues by documenting over 1,000 species using iNaturalist. The study prompted interesting discussions about the future of biodiversity monitoring in this article and on the iNaturalist forum. Other studies linking urbanization to biodiversity patterns included this study from California and this study or beetle diversity from Zagreb in Croatia.

Scaling monitoring
This month, government agencies including South African National Parks and the New Zealand Department of Conservation encouraged the public to use iNaturalist to help scale their biodiversity monitoring efforts. Likewise, stories mentioned using iNaturalist to monitor canids in Maine, endangered turtles in Canada, land snails in Florida, and birds in California. We loved this story about @jeremiah_psiropoulos and colleagues using iNaturalist to monitor a ski resort in Colorado.

Restoration and Stewardship
iNaturalist plays other roles in land stewardship beyond just monitoring. For example, iNaturalist is helping collect information to design wildlife crossings such as those being implemented to reduce newt road mortality in California as well as much larger wildlife corridors such as this new National Park in Connecticut. iNaturalist is also being used as a tool for stewardship to help gardeners avoid accidentally planting invasive plant species and helping golf courses diagnose tree diseases.

Climate Change Science

Heat mortality
With 2023 ending as the hottest year on record, iNaturalist is helping scientists understand the impacts of warming. This article describes a project by @jenydavis and colleagues at the Desert Botanical Garden to track the growing number of Saguaro cactuses dying from intense heat.

Changing phenology
Climate change is also driving the earlier onset of spring. In this study, scientists used iNaturalist to better understand climate change driven shifts in plant phenology (timing of the onset of leafing and flowering) across the Appalachian Trail Corridor. This study describes how scientists from South Africa are using iNaturalist data in machine learning data to make flowering phenology predictions for nearly 7,000 species of plants.

Climate change and evolution
In this fascinating article and video, @emilyblack19 and @katieemarshall described how they used phenology data from the great webworm hunt to understand how climate can influence evolution via whether populations have split into separate species based on the timing of life histories (allochronic speciation). Their research may help us explain why there are more species in the tropics which is one of the most important questions in ecology and evolution.

Species interaction Science

Photos associated with iNaturalist observations can reveal information about how more than one species interact. This interesting story describes ongoing controversy over whether Texas Crested Caracaras are killing livestock or rather scavenging already dead livestock. Since legislation allowing rangers to shoot these birds may depend on the difference, Texas Parks and Wildlife is encouraging the public to post observations of Caracara-livestock interactions. From Caracara’s eating livestock to mites parasitizing lizards, this study by @stephgodfrey and colleagues used iNaturalist data to better understand mite infestations in New Zealand geckos. This study by @jmbarrios and colleagues describes efforts to compile Mexican bee-plant interactions from iNaturalist.

iNaturalist data quality and open data

Data quality
One of the reasons why iNaturalist data is incorporated into so many studies and external projects is because it is an open data initiative and is relatively accurate. Regarding data accuracy, this study by @robgur and colleagues assessed the accuracy of iNaturalist observations of plants in the Southeastern US and found the accuracy to be about 84% which was significantly more accurate than herbarium records assessed (76%).

Open data collaborations
Data sharing between Wikipedia (sharing species descriptions with iNaturalist) and iNaturalist (sharing images with Wikipedia) plus community sharing (many iNat users are Wikipedia editors and vice versa) is a great example of open data initiative collaboration. This story describes an editathon (Wikipedia editing event) hosted by @magcl, @anabela2 at ArgentiNat (iNaturalist Argentina), Wikimedia and others which added or enhanced over 100 Spanish Wikipedia species pages and added over 50 images.

Building on iNaturalist
As for other examples this month of how iNaturalist data and services are shared, this San Francisco Chronicle article includes a dynamic Mushroom Map that incorporates data fetched from iNaturalist’s API. This story highlights the Find-a-Pest app in New Zealand which fetches not just data but also species suggestions from the iNaturalist Computer Vision Model. For a less high-tech example of open-data at work in New Zealand, the Wellington City Council included the most common garden species posted to iNaturalist in their 2023 top of the pops lists of the weird, the wacky and the wonderful.

iNaturalist Impact on AI Research

One of the most vibrant areas where iNaturalist open data is being put to work is in the rapidly evolving field of Artificial Intelligence. The iNaturalist dataset continues to be a widely used to benchmark (evaluate and compare) new advances in AI as demonstrated in studies this month by Petit et al., Zhang et al., Sastry et al. Many groups are using the iNaturalist data not just to evaluate models but to train their own computer vision models such as the model described in this article which combines images compiled from iNaturalist by @gvanhorn with images from the Encyclopedia of Life ( 45% of which were also archived from iNaturalist). Other models trained on iNaturalist data have been applied to control corn pests, identify Taiwanese spiders and mushrooms in Türkiye, and monitor risks of jellyfish stings. This BBC News article includes iNaturalist as part of a review of animal spotting AI. This article highlights iNaturalist as an example of ethical Artificial Intelligence decision making.

iNaturalist’s Human Health and Social Science Impact

Public health science
This month, several medical studies made use of iNaturalist data such as this paper tracking the distribution of kissing bugs which are vectors of Chagas disease causing parasites. This study describes using iNaturalist to record bat-cat interactions to better understand disease spillover events of bat-associated coronaviruses. This article describes using iNaturalist to help with medical cases from stinging caterpillars in Panama.

Mental wellbeing
iNaturalist is also impacts mental health through the therapeutic benefits of connecting to nature. For example, this inspiring profile of @plantsoflacounty and his efforts to photograph every native plant in Los Angeles county describes how nature photography is helping him grieve and recover amidst personal tragedy.

Social justice social sciences
As a reminder that access to the public health benefits of nature are not always equitable, this study by researchers at Berkeley used iNaturalist data to show how discriminatory redlining practices have had long-term impacts on biodiversity richness. There was also more coverage this month on the Yale study we highlighted last month that revealed differences in the densities of iNaturalist and eBird data correlating with redlining practices. But the Berkeley study is noteworthy by reporting differences in Accumulated Biodiversity Richness (which controls for these differences in data densities). This is suggested to be due to decreased vegetation cover and increased disturbance in less affluent neighborhoods supporting fewer species.

Social network social sciences
Lastly, we found this paper by @guiming and colleagues on the factors such as geographic location and taxonomic interest that drive social interactions on iNaturalist to be fascinating.

December iNaturalist Events

Recapping November events
There was great coverage about the 2023 Great Southern Bioblitz which happened last month including these two articles from southern Africa here and here.

December events
We loved this coverage of the 2023 Winter Solstice Sea Star Search. Don’t miss this hilarious video on how researchers like @rebeccafay and @kestrel at the California Academy of Sciences are making use of these data for sea star conservation. This article describes a bioblitz in Türkiye on December 10th.

Recapping 2023 Events
This report describes the Butterflies in My Backyard event in Canada wrapped up in December. The Bureau of Land Management Crowdsourcing Plan released this month features an earlier bioblitz in Basin and Range National Monument as an example project. This article by @carancho and @anabela2 describes Argentina bioblitzes on ArgentiNat (iNaturalist Argentina) such as City Nature Challenge and the Great Southern Bioblitz.

iNaturalist’s Education Impact

iNaturalist and Seek continue to be important elements of school curricula around the world as evidence by this article on digital education tools for classrooms in Russia. This article by @diana1815 and colleagues found iNaturalist to be an effective technology for teaching students about biodiversity material in Indonesia. Likewise, this study by @genina and colleagues describes the Dame Alas curriculum in Spain that makes use of iNaturalist and how its helping achieve education components of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

iNatters in the News

In an Esquire interview about their new book, After World, author @dmu describes how Seek by iNaturalist helped change their perceptions about nature. Don’t miss this profile on @jimwebster1015’s passion for citizen-science and this article on @ckubiak efforts to promote citizen science through the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania.

Thank you to everyone who participated in iNaturalist this December and for all of 2023! Your support makes it all possible. See you next year!

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