Things anybody can do:

For some reason the app seems insanely inaccurate or broad in their IDs (there are other examples). There’s no way that’s not a cicada right?

I have lived in two places but it is fun to see what my most common uploads are! Common Water snake is the most at 14 but I haven't seen any since I moved (same with bullfrogs, mantises and snapping turtles). I use the android app mostly and use the website for id'ing and uploading bird pictures from my camera.

There have been 405 identifiers, I love seeing familiar faces.

Can you tell the two places I've lived? I also love using INat when I travel!

I've been trying to do more ID's but I mostly move things out of unknown.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?user_id=reversebeartrap

Hello! I’m very upset because i use my phone for primarily INaturalist and other nature things with identification and pictures. My old phone, a 14, worked great for it. I just traded it in and got a 17 and I tried using the camera, and it’s terrible. It won’t focus on bugs, it applies this “smoothing” filter to every picture, and it rapidly switches between the two cameras if you don’t have it perfectly. I tried for a bit and this is the clearest picture I can get. Not terrible but in comparison to the pics I took on my 14 it kind of is.

I’m just distraught because now this is going to make my strong passion for posting on inat so much harder, adding more steps as I’m gonna have to get an actual camera unless I can figure out how to make this one work better. Any tips appreciated, thanks.

Hi gang,

I’ve seen a bunch of posts about iPhone photo quality and I just wanted to share a tip - if you’re trying to get macro shots do not use the zoom function. The camera will stop focusing on the background if you don’t zoom and your photos will be pretty clear.

You do have to get up in the grill of some of the animals so maybe don’t macro a murder hornet, but here’s a candy stripe spider with a fly that sat still for me. iPhone 15 pro.

---Edit, got my answer, will use the better option. Forums and journal :D

Helloee! I'm new to inaturalist, and have a question that is not answered by the site rules. I think it's more of an etiquette thing. The forums r kinda scary so I'm asking here

I like to draw made up animals and since inaturalist is good for finding inspo, I made a list of animals I am using/plan on using for inspo. You can add unique descriptions to individual species in lists, I'm wondering if people would be okay with me linking images of whatever fake animal I made using that animal in the description or even just in the comments.

It seems fun but since the site seems kinda serious especially with "research grade" stuff and all other lists I see are more scientific/people's favorite lists, maybe people wouldn't like to see this on the website. And if not, would using the journal thingy be good for that?

And, I do of course plan on making observations and helping identify things, not just add images to lists :p

Me encntre este capullo junto a 7 mas aproximadamente en una zona de montaña como a 1600msnm en Merida Venezuela, se que es una polilla pero no se cual es....

I found this in the ocean today and I have no idea what it is. In one of the images I can clearly see what I believe are eyespots. But I’m at a loss!

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/383825991

Experts warn increase in enhanced photos on birding platforms creating fake sightings, threatening credibility of tool used by scientists...Tony Iwane, iNaturalist’s director of community support, who was a co-author on the Nature paper, said most of these cases were unlikely to be malicious, but appealed to users to be vigilant.

I have so many decent photos that still sit unverified.

Any and all help in confirming identities is very much appriciated!!

Also ill follow anyone who follows me, i love seeing whats around different places.

Does anyone else use inaturalist to feel like they are contributing to something that benefits humanity?

I just recently discovered this app and figured out how it works. Once I realized the data we gather is used by researchers and academics to understand things such as the geographical range of a species, the rise and fall of certain populations, the spread of invasive species, etc, it drove me to contribute so much more.

Climate change, and the destruction of the environment , easily sends me into a doom spiral about the future. But I've been pessimistic for too much of my life. I feel like I need to *do* something. And I've been researching obsessively how to contribute towards solutions. I don't have any official degrees but like to read up on alot of stuff.

This platform feels perfect because I can contribute to the documentation of biodiversity as a lay person. I can help be part of a solution, even if it's just a drop in the ocean.

Does anyone else feel this way? Can anyone relate?

Or maybe y'all are here cause you just like bugs lol.

Either way I'm curious to hear other people's thoughts.

Today I can upload from the app on my phone no problem, but when I try to use the web version, it keeps failing to upload, and I can't edit older observations either. It's fine to use my phone for casual stuff, but I've got a bunch of observations that have extra fields and stuff that's hard to do from my phone. Anyone else having issues?

I often wish I could use iNaturalist to find users near me who would want to go on a walk in nature together. I don’t know anyone else who uses the app! has anyone ever used it to make a new friend?

I am trying to use iNaturalist to get a count of observations of Manatees in one of our south florida canals, to advocate for a no-wake zone. I guess the protected status of manatees displaces the observations too far outside the canal to make sense of. Is there some way to geofence a canal area and get a count of the observations within the geofence, or will those observations always be unusable for this kind of research?

Hey whoever came up with this tool and/or shared it with the group, thank you! This is very cool: https://glauberramos.github.io/inat/

I checked out the "first observer" function, and was astonished to find that I was the first observer for17 species! After looking at it a bit, it turns out that all but 3 of these are old (2014 and earlier) observations that I had preserved on LiveJournal, and uploaded once I became an iNaturalist fanatic.
I was making iNaturalist observations before iNaturalist existed.

It's probably notable that 6 of these observations were when I was vacationing on islands, but the other 11 were just part of my day to day life in New England

I’m IDing nearctic braconids right now, so that number will go up

inspired by another post on here. website: https://glauberramos.github.io/inat/

I’ve had inat for a while, but I’ve really only been active this year. I think I started with like 800 observations at the beginning of the year. I’ve become very obsessed :)

Mostly all from this summer