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The Situation
We thought it was time to re-up our endorsement of iNaturalist since they recently released a NEW version of their app! Yippee!
During every outdoor adventure weekend, you come across interesting plants, animals, fungi, and insects.
Some you’re familiar with and others are totally unique.
What if there was a FREE smartphone app that let you:
- Record photos of your discoveries, complete with GPS location, date, and time you saw them
- Look at expert suggestions to correctly identify what you find and show where similar discoveries have been made
- check out what discoveries have been made in your area, so you know what to look out for while you explore
- Participate in local and international projects, for example, Amphibians in Western Pennsylvania or Eastern Ohio Fungi
The Solution
The perfect way to record, identify, and share the wild things you find on your adventures is the iNaturalist app!
iNaturalist was created by the California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society to “connect people to nature”. In 2023, they became their very own non-profit.
Over 3 million iNaturalist users have made over 230 million observations of 430,000+ different species!
Once you create your profile, you are able to quickly upload photos of the plants, animals, fungi, and insects you’ve seen.
Soon, you’ll have your very own collection of observations:
As soon as you upload a photo, the app can help identify what you’ve seen.
You can click to specific observations at any time:
You can also leave notes about your encounter on the Details tab once you click on a specific observation:
Finally, you can complete your citizen scientist loop by submitting to different projects that are collecting observations targeting a certain area or species.
iNaturalist also shares all the observations with scientific data repositories- so you essentially helping scientists monitor and catalogue the world!
The Review
FIVE STARS
While I can’t deny my love for field guides, the iNaturalist app is the best way to record and quickly identify the wild things we encounter on our hikes.
For example, when I uploaded the photo of the Eastern Fence Lizard above on our recent trip, I had no idea what it was.
I uploaded the photo and the app immediately suggested that what I had seen was an Eastern Fence Lizard. A few other people confirmed the other identification.
Further down the screen, I could see a map of where other Eastern Fence Lizards had been observed.
Another cool feature on the iNaturalist app is the ability to do some reconnaissance when you go to a new area.
By simply hitting the Explore magnifying glass icon on the bottom left, you’ll see a satellite image of your location with pins dropped near you where observations have already been recorded.
You can also look at a list of what’s been seen – giving you a snapshot of what to look out for on your hike.
Not that you need another reason to download the iNaturalist app, but I just received this very cool summary of our discoveries from last year. We had 11 observations of 11 different species- kind of low for us!
So visit the app store and upgrade your wildlife identification game- FREE*!
Here’s to an outdoor adventure season full of new iNaturalist entries!
* Please note that while the iNaturalist app is free, they do accept donations to grow and improve their platform. Once you’ve used & love iNaturalist, you’ll want to help them out!
