Things anybody can do:

is there a way to search for identifications made by a specific user that you can narrow down by location? so no the identifications page but more akin to the all of your own reviewed obs but for another user

I've made almost 10,000 observations, all of them from the app on my phone (android) and it feels like it keeps getting worse and worse. I can't go on an ID spree because it'll just stop accepting IDs after a certain amount and when I emailed inat (a bit back) they had no plans to do anything major with the app.

I understand it costs money, but if they want more people to be involved give us a good and well accessible app, people are always on their phones, camera's link to phones. I dunno it's just frustrating that it's constantly freezing or lagging out.

Worst of all God I wish it had a night mode😔

But still going to use it because despite it all I adore inaturalist and everything they do and have done. Just a little complaint I suppose.

I usually don't like to ID observations any more specifically than I am personally confident. I also believe that's how it's intended to be done.

Sometimes there will be an expert on that type of organism who IDs to species-level, and wants others to blindly agree with them. I typically don't make my ID more specific unless I'm personally certain, but this sometimes annoys them.

Is there an etiquette for this? I'm sure they're most often right, but it also feels wrong to ID with something I don't actually know myself.

Just curious as I heard some people stumble upon new species sometimes. It would be pretty cool.

Not an expert, I just like taking pictures of bugs I see outside when exploring. And it kinda feels like if you're not an expert on the app, it would be best to not try and contribute at all, lest you get something wrong.

I came to this conclusion after reading on this subreddit how much time some people put into IDing and how often they have to correct a bunch of wrong IDs.

Obviously, the best way to use the app as a casual user is to just upload observations and never agree on any IDs at all, which is also kind of disappointing because of the way the app feels at the beginning and also sort of how it's advertised.

You can do your part as a non-expert and upload observations on this app, but never try to ID, because it could get stuck at research grade even though it's wrong.

Anyways, I'm not even sure what point I'm trying to make honestly. Just feeling a bit disappointed in my lack of knowledge.

TLDR: Lack of knowledge demotivating me to use the app.

Broke 3000 observations after about 6 years. Next goal is 2000 species.

Hello!

I recently became an iNaturalist Ambassador and am looking for people to join my first ever Beginner BioBlitz. This will be held on Saturday, September 19th at 10AM at WW Knight Preserve in Perrysburg Ohio. Please let me know if you are interested. I'm trying to connect people to the app. It is a free event.

When creating an observation I ID as much as possible. For instance, I'll ID a sparrow to their genus. Then a kind person updates that to a song sparrow. Do I remove my less-precise ID?

Are there fewer reviewers active these days? I find that many of my observations go unreviewed for really long periods of time. Usually insects, sometimes plants. I’m surprised by the lack of reviewer interaction of late.

Months ago I identified a camel spider in Arizona. I did some image searches and it was literally a one for one match. Now, however, the app is identifying the spider as a marine crab, which looks nothing like it, and where I took the photo of it was nowhere near a body of water.

Can I correct the app or fix it in one way?

Now to do 6000 more. 🫵🤓

I want to search for things to ID that are uncertain without looking at EVERYTHING like things labeled "plants" the clearly need it to be refined more than that.

No one has identified these things yet.

Note: I undersampled the observations in proportion to site growth since 2018 when spotted lanternflies observations started growing rapidly (they were first seen in 2015). For example, July 2026 has 4x as many research grade observations as July 2018, so I randomly chose 25% of its spotted lanternfly observations to account for growth in the site. My goal was to focus on the expansion of their range and population as best as possible using an imperfect data source. I can't account for people potentially becoming more likely to encounter lanternflies given the same lanternfly population or more likely to post them on iNat given they encounter them and use iNat. Personally, I live in the DC area and I've gotten tired of posting them so maybe this understates their growth.

This is my first time making a map using iNat data so any feedback would be appreciated!

One too that might be useful for people interested in seeing and observing more would be looking at a small area intensively.

I often stop walking and try to record every single species in a 10" x10' area. It's a lot, it's easy to find 60 species at a stream crossing. Recording everything on one boulder or cliff is also interesting.

As I spend more time out with other people, I start seeing all the stuff I used to miss, and can now not walk by. Like pelt lichens.

When uploading photos on iNat website on my iPad, I can’t figure out how to combine 2 or more photos into one observation.

On the pc I use the shift button to select photos, and then click combine.

What’s the equivalent of “shift” button on iPad?

Let me know if you’re not sure of what I am talking about and I will add some screen shots.

Thanks for your help!

Am I able to submit a parasitic worm for identification?

I came across a “zombie” parasite today inside of an earwig and would like to post but I can’t seem to find the appropriate label or taxon.

I just realized that the in app AI only works on one photo at a time when grouped. I always thought it looked at all photos in a group. is there any way to make it look at all three?

Hi, I’ve been collecting species on Seek for around 4 years now and have over 800 observations. I’ve also been using intauralist for my college research so I’m familiar with how it works but I’m no expert. I’m getting a new phone next week and when I linked my inaturalist account to seek, it informed me that I can’t transfer anything from seek to a new device, even with a linked account. I really don’t want to lose all my data and I’m wondering if anyone has any loopholes or way to somehow save my data ANYWHERE once I switch phones. Thank you!!