iNaturalist
Website and app for sharing biodiversity observations / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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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. As of 24 February 2024[update], iNaturalist users had contributed approximately 172,751,520 observations of plants, animals, fungi, and other organisms worldwide, and around 350,000 users were active in the previous 30 days.[7]
Type of site | Citizen science |
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Available in | 56[1] languages |
Area served | Worldwide |
Founder(s) |
|
URL | inaturalist |
Commercial | No |
Registration | Optional |
Users | 7.6 million registered users (May 2024)[update][2] |
Launched | 2008; 16 years ago (2008) |
Current status | Active |
iNaturalist describes itself as "an online social network of people sharing biodiversity information to help each other learn about nature", with its primary goal being to connect people to nature.[8] Although it is not a science project itself, iNaturalist is a platform for science and conservation efforts, providing valuable open data to research projects, land managers, other organizations, and the public.[8][9] It is the primary application for crowd-sourced biodiversity data in places such as Mexico, southern Africa, and Australia,[10][11][12] and the project has been called "a standard-bearer for natural history mobile applications."[13] Most of iNaturalist's software is open source.[14] Scientists have published more than 4,000 papers drawn from iNaturalist data sets and observations,[15] including descriptions of species new to science and rediscoveries of species so rarely seen they were feared extinct.