Getting Started
Hi and welcome to iNat! This guide will walk you through some of the main features of the site.
Organisms
What are Organisms
Organisms are different kinds of living things. You’re already familiar with the names of many organisms like humans, bald eagles, birds, snakes, mammals, and plants.
The Tree of Life describes how all organisms are related. Organisms can all be thought of as positions on the tree. Some are really groupings, like Ladybeetles, and refer to entire branches. Others, like Seven Spotted Ladybeetle, refer to individual leaves on the Tree. This means that an observation can correctly be identified as one of several organisms. For example, a beetle might be identified as a Ladybeetle or a Seven Spotted Ladybeetle. Both could be correct with Ladybeetle as a coarser identification than Seven Spotted Ladybeetle.
We’ve bookmarked ten positions on the Tree of Life with icons and colors so you can find them easily. These are good places to start exploring finer branches and leaves.
Sometimes, its useful to think of the Tree of Life as a family tree. Just like your parents are the common ancestor of you and your brother, the taxonomic genus Typical Ladybeetles is the common ancestor of the Seven Spotted Ladybeetle and the California Ladybeetle. And like the common ancestors of you and your second cousin are your great grandparents, the common ancestor of Seven Spotted Ladybeetle and Spotted Cucumber beetle is the taxonomic order Beetles.
We use the terms parents and children to refer to the most immediate ancestors and descendants respectively. And we refer to positions in the direction of ancestors as coarser positions.
Identifying Observations
- How to use the Identify tool
- How Identifications Work
- How to Confirm an Identification
- How to Improve an Identification
- A Few Caveats about Making Identifications
- How to Become a Better Identifier
How to use the Identify tool
If you start identifying a lot of observations, you may find that clicking through individual observations is slowing you down. To speed up the process, we've made an Identify tool specifically designed to help you identify as efficiently as possible. There's a video tutorial that describes the tool too.
- You can filter observations by taxon, place, or other filters in the filter menu.
- Click on an image to show more detail for each observation. This will open the identify modal.
- Use the buttons to add an ID, comment, or agree with the current observation taxon.
- To add a new ID, click "Add ID", enter a taxon, and click Save.
- Learn the keyboard shortcuts to increase your efficiency. For example, pressing the i key will begin to add a new ID, or pressing the a key will agree with the existing ID.
- Additional tabs on the identify modal show suggestions, annotations, or data quality information.
How Identifications Work
Is it a record of a fox, or a bald eagle, or a snail? On iNaturalist, you can weigh in by adding identifications to observations.
Each identification helps confirm or improve the community's opinion on the organism that the observation represents. We call this link between an observation and its organism the Observation Taxon. If the Observation Taxon is precise enough and has community support, an observation can become a Research quality record of that organism at a location and time.
To understand how this works, let's walk through a real example observation to see how the Observation Taxon was progressively shaped by several individual identifications. The cartoon to the right is a simplified version of the Tree of Life for this example. When adrianee4 posted the observation, she added a coarse identification of the class 'Insects'.
Here are the parts of adrianee4's observation when it was posted:
- The Observation Taxon corresponds to the class Insects. The 'Needs ID' flag indicates that the Observation Taxon can be confirmed or improved.
- The name of the observer
- The date of the encounter
- The photo acts as evidence of what the observer saw
- The location of the encounter on a map
- This observation just has one identification made by the observer, adrianee4
- Because this observation has just one identification, it has no 'Community ID'
Next, bbunny adds an identification of the family Ladybird Beetles. This identification is in agreement with adrianee4's original identification but is more precise. The Observation Taxon rolls forward to reflect bbunny's leading ID, but the Community ID sits at class 'Insects' which is the point of consensus among adrianee4 & bbunny's identifications.
- Identifications are listed chronologically with bbunny's identification listed after adrianee4's initial identification.
- Both adrianee4 & bbunny are in agreement that this observation is of an Insect. This point of consensus is called the Community ID.
Next, adrianee4 adds a new identification of a the species Three-banded Ladybird. Now both adrianee4 and bbunny are in agreement that the observation is in the family Ladybird Beetles. The Community ID moves up the Tree to reflect this new point of consensus and the Observation Taxon moves to adrianee4's leading ID.
- adrianee4's more recent identification of the species Three-banded Ladybird is listed here. Note that her earlier identification is no longer current and is crossed out.
- The Community Identification is now at the new point of consensus: the family Ladybird Beetles
- Meanwhile, the Observation Taxon rolls forward to adrianee4's leading ID.
Next, silversea_starsong adds an identification of the species Seven-spotted Ladybird.
bbunny's coarser identification of the family Ladybird Beetles is consistent with either Seven-spotted Ladybird or Three-banded Ladybird. This point of consensus becomes the new Community ID and the Observation Taxon.
- An identification of Seven-spotted Ladybird is added
- The Community Identification shifts to the family rank to reflect the point of consensus.
- As does the Observation Taxon.
Next, two more people: bug_eric and edanko add identifications of the species Seven-spotted Ladybird.
More than 2/3 (3 out of 4) of the IDs on Seven-spotted Ladybird and Three-banded Ladybird are on the former. The weight of these 3 IDs pulls the Observation Taxon and the Community ID down to Seven-spotted Ladybird.
- There are now 3 IDs of Seven-spotted Ladybird.
- The weight (>2/3) of these IDs pulls the Community ID to Seven-spotted Ladybird.
- As well as the Observation Taxon. Because the Community ID is at rank species, this observation is now Research Grade.
How to Confirm an Identification
On iNaturalist, your identifications will either confirm the Observation Taxon of an observation or improve it. Let's walk through confirming the identification of a Hippopotamus observation.
We're choosing the Hippo for this tutorial because they are unmistakable. Most likely none of these observations really need any identifications, but follow along and add an identification regardless. Start by heading to the Observations page by clicking 'Explore' in the main menu.
- Start typing 'Hippo' into the species field and select 'Hippopotamus amphibius'
- Make sure you are on Grid view in the Observations tab
- Find an observation that you recognize as a Hippo and click on it
Assuming you agree that this is an observation of a Hippo, let's add an identification.
- Click on the 'Suggest an Identification' tab at the bottom of the page
- Start typing 'Hippo' into the species field and select 'Hippopotamus amphibius'
- Click 'Done' to save your Identification.
How to Improve an Identification
Now let's actually improve the identification of an observation. We'll start very small by searching for observations with no identifications and adding a very coarse (and perhaps not too helpful) identification of 'plants'. We're assuming we can all recognize a plant, but not any expertise beyond that.
From the Observations page, filter by the Unknown category and select an observation that you recognize as a plant.
Note that the observation has no identifications and it says 'Unknown' where the Observation Taxon usually appears.
Add a coarse identification of the Kingdom Plants (or a finer identification if you can). Note that after saving your identification the Observation Taxon will update accordingly.
A Few Caveats about Making Identifications
1. Placeholder text
Sometimes observers enter some text in the 'What did you see' search field but stop short of selecting the organism needed to create an identification. This text is displayed as 'placeholder' text next to the Unknown label. Sometimes this placeholder text is useful for determining the identification that the observer intended to create.
2. Opting out of community identifications
Some observers have opted out of community identifications either entirely or on a case by case basis. This means that the Observation Taxon will always reflect the observer's identification, even if it departs from the community's opinion. Note that observations can't become Research quality without a Observation Taxon with community support.
3. Disagreements
If you add an ID of a taxon that is an ancestor of the Observation Taxon, it is unclear whether you're disagreeing with that finer identification or whether you are just doing your best adding a coarser ID. To figure out what your intention was, iNaturalist asks you to clarify whether or not you are explicitly disagreeing with the ID of the Observation Taxon in a pop-up. A disagreement with a finer taxon may be because you think it is certainly not that taxon, or because you disagree the evidence provided in the observation is sufficient to support an ID of that taxon.
If the Observation Taxon is at species rank, and you provide a disagreeing ID at family rank, note that in the current system this is considered an implied "branch disagreement", and iNaturalist interprets this as a disagreement with the genus in addition to the species. If you are explicitly disagreeing, be sure to provide an ID at the finest rank of which you are confident.
Click here for more tips to become a better identifier.
Places
Creating places
In order to create a new place, your account must have at least 50 verifiable observations. The observations don't need to be made in the area where you want to make a place. Once you have reached 50 verifiable observations, start by clicking on Places under More in the header.
Then click Add a new place
- Click Manually create a new place
- Enter the name of your place
- If the place falls completely within some other existing iNaturalist place, like a state or county, add that place as the parent
- Upload the boundary as a KML file. KML polygons can be created with the free Google Earth or QGIS apps. We do not support KMZ files, so please double-check the file extension.
- Select the place type, use type open space for parks
- Save your place
Exploring Observations
Exploring Observations on the Web
With iNaturalist, you can explore millions of wildlife observations shared by naturalists from around the world. This tutorial will show you how.
Start by visiting iNaturalist.org and click Explore from the top menu.
At a glance
When you first visit the Observations page here are the first things to notice
Observations page structure
At the top of the page are filters that we will use to narrow down this set of observations in the Adding filters section below. But first, let’s explain how the rest of the Observations page is structured. The page summarizes observations matching your filters as four separate counts
Each of these counts activates a tab which provides more information about what’s driving them. Let’s start with the Observations tab which is active by default.
Observations tab
The Observations tab displays every observation matching your filters on a map
As you zoom and pan around the map, you will see dense concentrations of observations in places like North America and New Zealand. If you zoom in far enough, the gray markers will be replaced with markers with different colors and shapes 
reflecting the taxonomic category, quality and geoprivacy of the observation described in the 
.
You’ll also notice the 
and 
buttons which can be used to add location filters. We’ll describe how these work in the Adding filters section below.
Species tab
Activating the Species tab summarizes the observations matching your filters as the distinct set of species that they represent. The most frequently observed species are displayed first. You can click through to learn more about these species.
Identifiers and Observers tabs
The Identifiers tab summarizes the observations matching your filters by the people who helped identify them. These identifier are ranked by the number of identifications they’ve added.
Similarly, the Observers tab summarizes observations by the people who observed them. Observers are ranked both by the number of observations and the number of species they represent.
You can click on people to learn more about them and message or follow them. Connecting with top identifiers and observers is a great way to learn more about observations that interest you.
Adding filters
The two main ways to filter observations are by Species and by Location.
Adding a species filter
The counts will update to reflect this restricted set of observations. Can you see that worldwide, over 11,000 species of Butterflies and Moths have been observed and that Painted Lady is the most frequently observed species?
Adding a location filter
You can also generate a bounding box manually from the position of the map by clicking the button mentioned earlier. Try clicking the 
button to position the map on your current location and then click to see if there are any observations of Butterflies and Moths near you.
This is because that location matched an iNaturalist place, in this case the State of California.
You can also use the button mentioned earlier to view and select nearby places. These places are separated into a Standard set maintained by iNaturalist and a Community Curated set added by the iNaturalist community.
Other filters and Exporting observations
In the Other filters menu, there are many more filters to choose from. For example, you can search by date or filter only research grade or threatened species observations.
Posting Observations
- What are observations?
- How to make an observation with your iPhone
- How to make an observation with your Android
- How to make an observation from the web
- How to import observations from Flickr
What Are Observations?
An observation records an encounter with an individual organism at a particular time and location. This includes encounters with signs of organisms like tracks, nests, or things that just died. When you make an observation, you’ll record:
Your observations don’t need to include all of these parts, but they do in order to become research quality observations for science. Remember, you should make separate observations for each separate organism you encounter.
If you observed something that is not wild, like a garden plant or a lion in the zoo, make sure to mark it as captive/cultivated to prevent it from becoming research quality.
How to Make an Observation with your iPhone
- Tap observe.
- Add one or more photos as evidence.
- Choose what you saw.
- When you saw it should be added automatically.
- Where you saw it should be added automatically. If it doesn't, check Privacy in the Settings app.
- Save your observation.
- Upload to share with the community. This should happen automatically. If it doesn't, tap the Upload button. You can turn off automatic upload from the app settings from the Me tab.
- Check back for activity on your observation from the community or be notified by email to the address in your account settings.
How to Make an Observation with your Android
- Tap the observe button from the My Observations tab.
- Add one or more photos as evidence.
- Choose what you saw.
- When you saw it should be added automatically.
- Where you saw it should be added automatically. If this doesn't happen, check app permissions in the Settings app.
- Save your observation.
- Sync to share with the community. This should happen automatically. If it doesn't, tap the button. You can turn off auto upload from the Settings tab.
- Check back for activity on your observation from the community or be notified by email to the address in your account settings.
Make an observation from the Web
- Start by clicking the green Upload button from the header when you are logged in.
From the upload page, begin by dragging in one or more photos. Each photo will create an 'observation card' that you can edit before submitting. You can also use the 'Add' button in the upper left to create observation cards without photos or the 'More Import options' menu to upload a CSV or import from external sites.
- Choose what you saw from the suggestions or by searching for a name. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, leave it blank or use some placeholder text. If you entered a scientific name that's not recognized, click ‘Search external name providers’ to first import the organism from elsewhere. Use the sidebar to let us know if the organism you observed was captive or cultivated.
- Use the calendar to enter when you observed the organism
- Type in an address and select from the places offered in order to calculate coordinates and an accuracy circle describing where you were. You'll probably also need to zoom into the map and manually adjust the marker position and accuracy circle size.
- Submit your observation.
- Check back for updates on your observations by the community or be notified by email to the address in your account settings.
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