iNaturalist

iNaturalist
Type of site
Citizen science
Available in56[1] languages
Area servedWorldwide
Founder(s)
  • Ken-ichi Ueda
  • Nate Agrin
  • Jessica Kline
URLinaturalist.org
CommercialNo
RegistrationOptional
Users 4.3 million registered users (December 2024)[2]
Launched2008 (2008)
Current statusActive

iNaturalist is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit social network of naturalists, citizen scientists, and biologists built on the concept of mapping and sharing observations of biodiversity across the globe.[3][4] iNaturalist may be accessed via its website or from its mobile applications.[5][6] iNaturalist includes an automated species identification tool, and users further assist each other in identifying organisms from photographs and sound recordings. As of 5 August 2025, iNaturalist users had contributed nearly 300 million observations of plants, animals, fungi, and other organisms worldwide, and 400,000 users were active in the previous 30 days.[7]

iNaturalist serves as an important resource of open data for biodiversity research, conservation, and education, describing itself as "an online social network of people sharing biodiversity information to help each other learn about nature."[3] It is the primary application for crowd-sourced biodiversity data in places such as Mexico, southern Africa, and Australia,[8][9][10] and the project has been called "a standard-bearer for natural history mobile applications."[11] Most of iNaturalist's software is open source. It has contributed to over 4,000 research papers and is widely used by scientists, land managers, and conservationists worldwide.[12] The platform has also been active in the discovery and rediscovery of new and previously assumed to be extinct species.

  1. ^ "INaturalistWeb — Translation Project on Crowdin".
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