INaturalist Classic App Reviews

Intuitive but.... I would find a how to video most helpful. I started using this and didn’t understand about marking something as cultivated. I still don’t know for instance if I had a cultivated tree I purchased at a store and planted and now volunteers of that tree are coming up is it still cultivated? When my store bought flowers re seed are they still cultivated? Would love a place to mark the approximate size of the thing I took a picture of. In my photos a 2 inch tall flower looks the same size as a 24 inch tall flower because I take a close up of just the bud. Would the community like me to place a coin in the picture for size reference or keep it natural? I would also like a way to have a “private project”, or mark or flag items as personal. I don’t think all of my cultivated plants in my back yard and living room warrant making an official project but I’d like to pull up only things from my yard as I use the app to learn about them. I don’t think individual/ personal use is the intention of projects. The app is great fun, easy to use and feels accurate on identifications.

Updated and not very good any longer. I’m completely blind but I don’t let that stop me from doing the things I love such as gardening. This app was pretty darn useful and accessible using my iPhone screen reader, and although it rarely correctly identified the plant right off the bat, it would most times previous to about April 2021 give me the correct suggestion in a list of possibilities. I am really, really disliking the updated System as there are far, far fewer suggestions even when I go turn off the “nearby“ switch (which I seem to have to do with every single observation). Along with that, the things it does suggest are laughably far from correct; no, the iris I’m taking a picture of is not a toad of any species, nor is it a blue land crab,, nor also “magic mushroom“ (I kid you not, that was the title of a suggestion and yes, it was the psilocybin )trip( variety of mushrooms per the species name to that title). Basically, this used to be really good and I would happily pay for what it used to be, but certainly wouldn’t pay for what it is now.

Amazing but a few things. I love this app so much! For new people, this is a very good app with tons of stuff. Identifications, exploring, and commenting are just a few. I still have a few suggestions. Maybe what you could do, there could be tournaments for who can find the best animals or plants under a theme. People of the community can vote it up or skip it. You get points for likes and liking others, or identifying a plant or animal correctly. (To when they change it.) You could get coins if you win 1st, second or third, and you get more coins the higher rank you get. The tournaments hold 10-15 people. They end in 4 days. You upgrade tournaments by getting trophies. Maybe using the coins to upgrade the rim of your avatar, or maybe special colors on your screen instead of white. I think this will make more people motivated to have this app. Of course, the app is perfect, and maybe adding focusing the camera by tapping would be nice.

I love this app but social aspect could be improved. This is definitely the best identification app out there. No competition. I’m always recommending it to people as the other apps out there cannot compare. I love that it has plants and animals and it’s great that other people can comment if I’m stuck or misidentify something. The app is so great which is why it’s also a little frustrating that it falls so short. I would just like the following aspect to be improved a lot. It would be so lovely to see what my mom and my boyfriend post coming up on a feed like Instagram or something similarly. I think it would be also sort of cool if events or meet ups could be organized through the platform. Duolingo has worked this out really great where users can actually host events. I really do love this app and hope to see some improvements.

Great idea just needs some tweaks. It is super tedious to have to re-search for and set the location for each upload when you have 20+ to do at the same time. If it could simply remember your recent previous locations that would be amazing. Most apps these days do that. Also if there was a better way to get ID’s. It seems like if yours isn’t answered the same day it won’t ever get an ID. Maybe some sort of needs ID feed for everyone for the groups they have joined? It would also be nice to easily know who is an expert in a field and has trustworthy ID’s. Leaderboard is completely pointless for this. Value is not implied by number of uploads. Value would be correct ID’s/ expertise. Easily accessed known range maps for species would be great too. Flags for possible invasive species in area would also be helpful. Clickable sighting map so it’s possible to investigate the specific sighting to determine if it is credible.

Nature identified!. This app is one of my most trusted and used apps. I have on my phone! I use it almost everyday, two-three times a day at any given time… I’ve helped many of my friends and family identify all sorts of things- that may have been wondering what it is…if it is poisonous or dangerous for pets, etc. Not to mention the amount of knowledge i have gained from the nearly 100 observations I have made while using this app. I highly recommend for any nature-bug-bird person out there who is looking to find a solid identification of what they are looking at. Not to mention the community of experts who double check your observations and will suggest the correct identity of your observations - and trust me when i say more than half of my personal observations have been misidentified or a different subfamily all together, they will leave a comment at times. Over all I would give this app 100 stars if they would let me….

My most important app. I cannot express how many ways iNaturalist changed the way I look at the world around me. True, the phone app is pretty limited (I’m excited to see upcoming changes) but it serves as a seamless way to get your data onto the website, where you can keep track of species seen, document natural encounters on trips, and check out what you might see on your next upcoming vacation. I love planting for butterflies, so I love to see what has been documented as visiting my area and figure out what I can plant to support it. After a while, you get connected to local naturalists and start knowing who to ask when you have a question. There’s always the potential for interesting discussion.

Just what I was looking for. I was looking for an app that could serve as a field guide and a log. This is perfect. The detection/categorization of flowers works well. I uploaded a lot of pictures that I had not taken with identification in mind. Feedback from other users is helpful, as is the ability to see what others have found in the area. You can mask the location of observations if you worry about exposing a rare or sought after species. Update 2019: have been using this for 3 years, still love it. Update 2022: 6 years and still love it. If you really want to get into this, check out their website. The app doesn’t have the full functionality of the website. The app is really a tool for uploading observations. The features on the website would be hard to replicate in an app. I do think they are working on a major upgrade, esp for iOS.

Very useful and informative app!. I was recommended this app by an online friend, and am so glad I started using it! I’ve always loved nature (and taking photos of the things I see), so iNat is a perfect fit for me. It’s super easy to use, and the auto suggest feature is a blessing in situations where I have... just NO idea what I’m looking at haha! 🌼 iNat has also been a motivating factor for me this pandemic- even stuck at home, this is a good way to ground myself in the world around me. Backyard species that I had previously overlooked (like small bugs or just ‘weeds’) helped remind me that every type of life is interesting in its own way. From tiny mushrooms I would have never ID’d previously, to purposely taking up-close shots of skittish butterflys, iNat has been nothing but a delight to use! I recommend it wholeheartedly to everyone, even if you don’t know too much about ‘nature’- this app can really help you learn! 🌱

My Favorite Hobby-almost perfect!. 💙Love this app! I was introduced to iNaturalist through my university but discovered that it was also a great activity for my s/o and I to do together too! We’ve really gotten into it. It’s easy to use and has great species recognition software! 🔻BUT🔻 some of my favorite features currently available on the website are sorely missing from the app. For example, the app does not have the option to search usernames and follow friends, review photos in large grid/Instagram format, or create your own nature guides. If these additions were made to the iNaturalist app, it might actually attract new users already familiar with the popular format as well as making the app a little more visually appealing and fun. It’s functional. It works as a crowdsourcing science app. The GPS location tracking is wonderful. All-in-all it’s my favorite activity to do in my small town during quarantine!

Downloaded 2 days ago. I’m obsessed.. Great for plants and gardeners, for personal use of things you’ve planted, natives you want to protect, and great for tracking invasive species. Great for tracking wildlife. Bird watching. Bug enthusiasts. Foragers. Flower lovers. There’s something for everyone. I wish there was a quicker method of getting IDs from the community, but it’s only been 2 days and I’ve uploaded months of stuff I’ve been tracking in my phone. But it would be cool to see a feature of searching for plants in the area and filter by ones that need IDs. I also wish you could set a default location on things instead of inputing it every time, I’m not going to share exactly where the highly sought native species are due to poachers, so I save them to my house. It would also be a cool feature to add in person events but projects sort of fits the bill I guess. Overall I’m loving this app so far.

Literally mine and my son’s favorite part of each day. What a neat, educational, app full of an infinitely vast treasure trove of information. My 7 year old son and I share our account, and he LOVES anything related to the outdoors and science in any way. He spends every possible waking moment outside every day, hot or cold, rain or shine, and I don’t have to ask what he’s doing when I hear him run inside suddenly, ask for (or just grab) my phone and he’s back out the door. Sometimes I notice, others I don’t know he used it at all until I get the email that I have new updates on here. Ha! We spend part of every day, different times of day to try to capture a variety of crawlies and critters and “bugs”. He loves clicking each new identification and reading and deciding whether or not he agrees with the id…and he could spend hours just clicking through from one fascinating photo to another. Always learning. And he’s excited to do it with his mom. I can’t say enough good things about this app/tool.

My favorite app!. I absolutely love this app and recommend it to everyone. As an environmental science grad I’m obsessed with everything nature, but I can’t always identify what I’m looking at. This app is the easiest way I’ve found to ID something without spending a ton of time scouring images on the internet or flipping through books. Even if I can’t get a 100% sure ID I have a direction to look in for further research. Other users are also super helpful with confirming my IDs or suggesting their own based on my uploads. The app is super easy to use which makes it an excellent tool for citizen science and large scale data logging by anyone and everyone. You can even join different groups in your area and focus on different subjects (birds, plants, mushrooms, etc.). Who doesn’t love an informational app that makes it easy for the community to get involved and go outdoors?! This app is fantastic- 5 stars!!

Wonderful learning tool. I have been using this app along with a couple of other similar apps for a couple of years. The iNaturalist app is by far the best of all of them. It is very accurate at identifying about anything living. If you run across something you aren’t sure of the community can help with suggestions. The members are very knowledgeable if not expert. You have an account so your observations are all logged for you and you can log in from any device to use it. I use it everywhere and if I am pressed for time I just snap some photos with my phone and upload them later. The location information for the photo pinpoints where it was taken. I really enjoy being able to identify so many plants. It is a great learning tool. If you want an app to identify plants and animals of all kinds look no further.

Great citizen science app. This app is a helpful tool for anyone and everyone. Helps you identify plants, animals, and fungi via high quality photos you take. Even if the algorithm can’t narrow down ID suggestions to a species, sharing real-time flora and fauna occurrence data means that other users on iNaturalist can also make suggestions and comments. Useful for educational purposes, general curiosity, and even scientific research. A modern way to collect data on wildlife distributions using citizen science. Note- you can save pictures for later if your current location doesn’t have cell service needed for ID suggestions. Just go back to your post and edit it with the suggestion tool and enter location of finding. Overall, I highly recommend this app to anyone, no scientific background required.

Priceless App!. I have been the person that has always loved seeing nature and wanted to know what exactly I am looking at when I encounter a new-to-me species of flora or fauna. This app makes the process as easy as taking a picture and searching the suggested options to determine what you see. I have only been using it for about half a year and I can’t tell you how much joy my family has gotten out of simple moments like seeing a unique plant off the trail while on a hike and being able to know what it is almost instantly. The app works incredibly well for all life I’ve encountered so far, be it small or large, rooted, legged, or fungal, it really does a magnificent job. This app is my guide to understanding the wildlife I cross paths with, and it’s extra lovely because I can look back on my catalog and see the many different life forms I’ve encountered in the world. Lately I’ve been cataloging the bugs and birds I find around the house. I highly recommend this app, because I see this app having something valuable to offer all nature lovers. Embrace the magic and get this app.

Great app with one limitation. My property is designated as a National Wildlife Federation Habitat and I have made a point of trying to capture all of the flora and fauna that resides both full and part-time. This app is exceptionally well suited for this task. One shortcoming, however, is the audio recording/integration function. For image documenting, you can import from your photo library or use the app’s camera function. To add audio to an observation, however, there is no choice but to use the apps microphone. In other words, you can’t record audio in another app, edit to the desired portion of the recording, then import that file into iNaturalist. This is a considerable shortcoming. Often, I find myself attempting to record a bird that has been active but stops vocalizing for an long period. When, and if, it sings again, many seconds may have passed. This makes for some long audio files filled with mostly silence. My recommendation would be for iNaturalist to allow the importing of MP3 files just as it allows for importing image files.

Amazing. Love this app! Great for any living thing! If you are unsure of what you have sometimes others can help with identifying whatever it is you took a picture of! What a great independent non profit! PS I believe I’ve had this app since 2019 and it’s 2024! Yes it can be frustrating because you have to manually add your location(unless you have location on; I do not have mine on no thanks lol) and yes it doesn’t always say it’s identified until a a professional or whatever they are comes along and tries to identify it; now with this in the comments you can click agree if you agree; if not than don’t! The point was that it helps bring up suggestions (10 at most I believe most times less if you have a good picture!) depending on your location you select and what your picture is of

The Best Citizen Science App Out There. Inaturalist is an amazing community of scientists around the world that has given me so many opportunities and so much knowledge its crazy. I have been using the app and website for 5 years now and have become deeply committed to it. I love that I can learn so much about other fields of science I am not as well versed in through engaging with other people’s posts and through using the explore map function. This app helps me find and document species that I am looking for and has been an a amazing resource to get better at identification skills. This app has also landed me a job in entomology studying millipedes as it has been crucial in my careful observation of the world around me. I can’t thank this community enough. Download Inaturalist today!

Mostly brilliant. A quick, intuitive app for cataloging sightings and sharing data. If I have any complaints, it’s that the app’s camera is fairly low quality, and oftentimes won’t focus in time to capture a clear picture. This shouldn’t be an issue for anyone uploading photos taken with a proper camera, but for those with just a phone it can be quite irritating. Additionally, if you’re not using your current location for a sighting, it can be quite difficult to navigate to the correct location on the map to apply a destination retroactively. For some reason, the search location by name feature is absent when looking for a location in the sighting pop-up.

I’ve been using this app for years. I’ve been using this app to keep track of all of my insect & plant observations locally. 213 observations to date. Unfortunately, over the years, I’ve had to deal with a lot of local misogynists & racially insensitive comments on my own page along with my observations showing up as blanks as of this morning. I finally reported this to the admin today after being harassed about an insect post comment from over a year ago this morning. I was told via email, that I can only block 3 people within this app (which I couldn’t today, because I already tried this morning) and in the response email, it was even admitted that their admin may come off as condescending due to language issues. Okay, we’ll since I am multi-lingual, I found that response from, “Tony”, who assumed I only speak American English, to be odd. If they know that language is an issue for a given person, then update the app & list people’s preferred language(s) on each of their pages. The app has on multiple occasions given me wrong identifications due to scientific names versus nicknames for any given observation (queue the misogynist responses) & I’m fairly certain languages tie into that. There is also what I call coded language in many of the comments in this app. I would probably be very cautious in letting children use this app with all the adult men that clearly use the app for more than observations.

The best possible use of technology (and it’s fun!). You take a picture of a plant or critter and a robot tries to tell you what it is. What’s more: you’re contributing to citizen science. I posted a plant that I couldn’t ID past the genus. It turned out that I had found a species new to my county and the local natural history museum was stoked. Now my name is on an herbarium specimen and in a scientific publication because I got curious and took a picture of a flower. I never would have learned so much about my native plants were it not for this app. It makes taxonomy much more accessible to a layperson. I’ve also met so many people through it who have taught me so much! My only complaint is that it’s a gateway drug to the actual website which is much better and straight-up addicting.

iNat fan. I love this app and use it every day. I even use it in my classroom to teach about technology, citizen science, and biodiversity. My students are involved in a school-wide project to post species seen around out campus. Before traveling, I explore my destination in iNaturalist to learn about the flora and fauna that I should look for. A lot of times, I choose my hiking and vacation spots based on the observations that have been posted in different areas. There are a couple of things that I would like to see improved, though. For starters, it would be nice to see more alignment between the app for phone vs for the computer. The phone doesn’t allow for interaction with the community like the computer app does and the maps in the computer app are not nearly as good as those on the mobile app.

Amazing, Brilliant, Engaging!. An awesome and brilliant way to engage with the natural world around us, iNaturalist is a wonderful application and community for anyone interested in the flora and fauna we share the planet with. Inspiring a budding community of naturalists, with the curiosity of John Muir and David Attenborough, the iNaturalist team has developed a truly amazing product. This app instantly and reliably identifies plants, animals, and insects from just a single photo which contributes to scientific research! Not only are you having fun, inspiring curiosity, and satisfying your own personal discovery, but you’re helping with actual scientific research, too! What more could a user want? I can’t recommend this application and community highly enough, I tell all my friends and colleagues about it and visitors to the wildlife conservation facility I volunteer at, too. It’s truly an amazing tool!

An amazing app all around for identifying species.. I’m just a 20 year old that wants to know what every creatures purpose is around me and this has been the most fun way to do it. There are no ads, you upload a picture of the animal of reasonable quality, it helps if there’s multiple pictures and you describe what you saw in the description area. You put your location, which can be moved around so that your location isn’t known. It’s important to note that the location is key in determining a species sometimes so be decently accurate on the location. Once you’ve done that, AI, that’s right, artificial intelligence studies the pictures and compares them to other picture alike and species in the area to often give you a suggestion that’s correct or another 10 suggestions below of which I usually find the species I’m looking for if it’s not too obscure. I’ve also contributed to the knowledge of where some species are which feels great. My only complaint is there’s no place to provide feedback but here and the upload speed is reasonably slow. But this is a wonderful app that I recommend for any biologist. Yes, you can submit species under the microscope, too!!!! Thank you California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society for helping create this app!!!

INat: A Traveler’s Guide to the Natural World!. I travel a lot and iNat has been a wealth of knowledge for my explorations wherever I may be. I was very hesitant to post at first because I could feel all these very smart contributors and didn’t feel I matched up. But that’s the whole point! Everyone is welcome to post observations and the app is brilliant at suggesting possibilities for what you see so the learning is timely and accessible. I urge everyone to jump in and snap pictures of things you’re curious about and let the wonder unfold! Turn on the location feature so the suggestions are local. You’ll be amazed at the resourcefulness of this app and it’s community! Get outside and become a citizen scientist! And you might notice how much it calms the mind and soothes the soul. They say it boosts the immunity and Vit D levels too! Let’s go iNat!! Right now. Yes, right now!

Love it.. As someone who just enjoys nature, this is a great app. I like just viewing other people’s observations even if I have no intention of identifying it. If me having fun showing my interesting wild plant/animal/etc findings helps some sort of research or cause, even better. I collect houseplants and do some work in landscaping, so I’ve done a bit of amateur research on plant varieties. I enjoy being able to submit guesses as to what I think plants might be. If I’m not correct, someone can correct me easily, too. When I’m wrong, I learn something. When I’m right, someone else learns something. Only real problems I have: - I get minor crashes when trying to update observations after they have already been listed. - I would like a way to mark an observation as possibly cultivated/captivity. I am unsure if there is a way to do this currently but sometimes am confused on whether or not I should identify captive species. (I see that I can do this when I post an observation, but not on other’s posts.) - I would maybe like a bit more direction as to how to use the app in terms of interaction with others. I was ‘agreeing’ with IDs that people posed on my observations, not realizing I maybe shouldn’t be doing that right away. Browsing the forums have been quite helpful in terms of etiquette; maybe a more obvious link to that? :)

Amazingly useful app/website for ANYONE that is interested in nature. I have been a Docent (trained volunteer) at a California State Reserve and a California Naturalist for four years. iNaturalist is by far my #1 go-to place for any questions on species identification issues. It’s astonishing that (a) the automatically suggested IDs almost always contain the correct answer, usually as the first suggestion, and (b) that you can get confirmations of a proposed ID from multiple species experts around the world, and often within minutes of posting an observation. My favorite so far is a picture I posted of a single feather my granddaughter found (and held in her hand in the photo) that was quickly identified by an 18-year old expert on the opposite side of the world (and she also told me specifically that it was a “secondary flight feather” from a Red-shouldered Hawk). I can’t live without this app and neither should you.

Love this app but.... I LOVE this app so very very much. It’s a necessary tool in the world we live in and makes logging a breeze - almost. The problem comes with the location tags. I often take my photos in locations where there is no cell/gps/data service. So my solution to that is to take photos and then upload from my phone later when I am on WiFi at home. However, I can’t simply type in an address, coordinates, or anything on the location map to automatically find the location of the plants. I have to literally scroll through the map of the entire world and find the point on it to zoom in where I took the photos. This is a tedious task, especially when I’ll take a dozen photos in a location. I’ve resorted to putting coordinates in the description for now, but I know that won’t be accepted for research grade. Is there any way to fix this or plans to make this process easier in the future?

iNaturalist. iNaturalist is a great community sourced nature application that allows users to learn about a comprehensive amount of wildlife whether plant of animal and and observe and record their findings. The application makes it easy to learn about wildlife with all the captured data from scientists and other users like yourself including titles, descriptions and photos of subjects. The community can also aid you in your findings with suggestions on wildlife you have observed. Users can look up wildlife captured in their location or easily add it with the camera on the device they are using. The app allows users to create projects you can continually add to as well as follow projects from others you are interested in. iNaturalist also has a news section detailing the latest captures from the community as well as the latest developments concerning the application. For professionals as well as amateurs iNaturalist is a great tool to learn more about our everyday surroundings both near and far.

Suggestion for the amazing developer(s) of this useful app. Everything about this app is extremely helpful and really user friendly once you make your first observation (taking a picture and identifying the species) I couldn’t ask for an easier identification system. Before discovering this app, I had to manually identify things myself, so I REALLY appreciate the hard work that’s been put into making this app. The only suggestions that I have are 1. Being able to tap and zoom in on the image being used while scrolling through the list of possible identifications and 2. Having an automatic tag system for species that are observed somewhere that they are not native to. I plan on studying invasive species in college and I believe that it’d be really cool if this app implemented a labeling system to notify users if they have identified a invasive species in the area. I just think that more people should realize that not every animal/plant that they see is supposed to be there (there meaning wherever the user lives) I feel like I’m rambling but what I’m trying to say is that iNaturalist could be VERY useful in spreading awareness of invasive species!

Great to take into the field. I’m a big fan of the full-featured iNaturalist web site, and used to dismiss the app as a gimmick for more casual users. But I just did a couple of quick local trips to round out species for the City Nature Challenge, and found myself actually enjoying submitting pictures through the app. My major remaining complaint is that I have to do my cropping in my photo app before I go into iNaturalist, but I think that’s being worked on. Also, I don’t think the app interface gives enough guidance to new users on the fact that they should upload multiple distinct informative pictures of a subject to a single observation, as opposed either to making multiple observations of the same individual or putting multiple different species in the same observation. A slightly more wizard-like interface might help that.

Great idea, but on the decline.. Don’t get me wrong, i love this app and have used it for a while. I just don’t understand why they have removed so many features over the last few years? Some of my favorite parts used to be browsing animal or plant families and being able to jump around from species to species and all the way up to the kingdom level - now for some reason none of that is possible. You can’t access any phylogeny info from a species page without going to the website, and i’m not sure why. Same thing with the more social aspect of the app - i used to enjoy looking at my friends’ and other local’s pages to see what they’ve been finding recently, but now that is not possible either. You can’t view any profiles on the app at all. I thought they had introduced “seek” as a more beginner-friendly app, so it seems strange that theyve been breaking down this app to it’s bare bones state as well.

By far the best field guide app, & it’s FREE!. I’ve downloaded and tried handfuls of field-guide-type-apps (some for plants, some specifically for mushrooms, etc) and iNaturalist BY FAR takes the gold medal. Reasons iNaturalist is #1: the user-friendly setup of the app’s layout; the community/peer based suggestions with a social-media-meets-field-guide vibe; and just the fact that after downloading 5-6 free field guide apps and testing them all out- I DELETED THE OTHERS BECAUSE INATURALIST IS THE ONLY ONE THAT COULD COMPARE/REPLACE AN ACTUAL PRINTED FIELD GUIDE BOOK. >> One suggestion though: although I do love the feature where other users can comment their ID for my observation- whether they believe it to be the same species, etc that I had thought and originally posted, or whether they have a different suggestion- I THINK IT WOULD BE SO COOL IF AFTER ONE PERSON/USER POSTS/COMMENTS A SPECIFIC ID FOR AN OBSERVATION, IF ANYONE AFTER THAT AGREES- IF THEY COULD JUST CAST THEIR VOTE WITH THE BEFORE OBSERVATION ID. ^^ Or it would be even better if when I post an observation that I am unsure of the ID and maybe 2 of the apps top suggestions both look equally right, it would be cool if there was an option to check mark both of them, and ask the iNaturalist community to help ID the observation by voting. All around great app, SO GLAD I STUMBLED UPON IT.

iNaturalist is my favorite!. The INaturalist app/site is my favorite nature identification site because it’s interactive with each user able to continually contribute new exhibits whether they are able to solidly identify it or not and each member can confirm identification on species each is familiar with rather than having a fixed and static database that only changes when one person or a group of a few people update it. A few other reasons that it’s my favorite nature identification app is because it’s not limited to just just one thing such as a plant or a bird identification platform, but rather includes everything which is alive (for the most part), it’s free to use & free to contribute to, and it’s always expanding with new real-life exhibits by the day or even by the hour.

Almost perfect. I love this app. It has almost single handedly revived my love for going out and just observing nature. I’m always on the lookout for something to document. My increased vigilance, in effort to contribute to the community, has allowed me to see some really cool finds like my first ever Baltimore Oriole! This is an easy five stars to give. My only suggestion would be to add a way to view someone’s profile and see all of their observations! I think that would be a really cool way to see how other specific people are contributing as well. I’d love to see the things my dad observes while out on the job without scrolling all the way to his place of work on the explore map and hoping his observation pops up. I really think this would be a cool and engaging quality of life change.

This app is my life. If I could, I would marry this app. iNat is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I have learned so much and have met so many amazing people through this app. Before iNat, I was the weird person who liked bugs. With iNat, I have slowly blossomed into an amateur subject matter expert documenting previously unknown behaviors/species relationships/coloration variations and submitting specimens to university entomological collections. I went from not being able to tell the difference between rice stink bugs and brown stink bugs one year ago to knowing hemipteran scientific names better than the common ones. Sure, iNat didn't do that in and of itself, but it facilitated my self-education and gave me the means to organize my data/photographs, and my competitive nature motivates me to go out and DOCUMENT ALL THE THINGS! The iNat people are continually improving their platform, and this mobile version is the best yet. The photo suggestion tool is amazing and sorely needed. Not perfect, but it's THE BEST version of photo ID out there and I'm frankly amazed by how good it is.

Some Suggestions. It's a great app. Basically what it is is its a community of nature lovers sharing their observations and identifying species of plants٫ reptiles٫ mammals٫ birds٫ insects٫ and even fungi and arthropods. I do have a couple suggestions. First is the one I want in the app the most and its instead of just being able to send a photo or audio clip٫ but also being able to show a video of the organism. Second is to be able to click on someone's name or profile picture and see all their observations. Third and this is more of a complaint but I wish it wouldn't try to get you to upload every observation. It changes your profile picture to an upload button if you have observations you didnt post. The results when identifying a species are kinda accurate٫ im no biologist but I know for sure that a bush is not a rabbit. Something like that only happened to me once٫ and it was when I was trying to identify a bush and the app suggested a rabbit. The identification system isn't terrible though٫ it comes up with pretty accurate results. Once again٫ I am not a biologist٫ but I can tell by comparing the results to the picture.

Great tool for a field notebook. The concept is great and the development of this app is always improving. I do wish there was an option on the location section to choose a generalized area instead of a exact location. Some of my finds are in my backyard and I don’t want people knowing that. However, I do want people to know the region and/or the town to help others know what’s too look for when passing through. Another note is the search tools. It’s not the best at searching for basic terms. It doesn’t group the like organisms together. For example, i can’t find all the types of birds near me by simply typing in ‘birds’ I have to look for a specific species. Obviously no app is perfect, thats why it’s important to grow and improve as time go by. iNaturalist is the best example of this; they encourage the users to give helpful tips and even collaborate with the developers. this app is a great start to creating something beautiful and helpful to society. It connects modern technology to nature.

Love this app it’s connected me with nature!. I’ve been using iNaturalist pretty consistently for about a year and a half, ever since I moved into a more rural area. The app has really revolutionized my experience with nature. I had tried for years to use books and the Internet to self identify things I discovered in the wild often got overwhelmed and gave up. This app and community join forces in a way that almost immediately points me in the right direction or even gets it 100% correct the first try my only feedback would be to change the leader boards so that you can see more easily where you score within, a certain geographic region rather than against the entire community it’s pretty much irrelevant to most of us will never score high in the top. I also wish that there was a way to compare the suggested identification with the image you’ve uploaded before selecting the IDs, go back-and-forth to cross reference and check.

I love this app. When I heard that there was an app that would help me identify birds, mammals, fungi, insects, plants and other organisms from photos, I was very skeptical. After all, there are millions of living organisms, and they look different at different ages, in different seasons, and even in different environments. I have been very pleasantly surprised by how often this app correctly identifies the subject. It works even better if you are familiar enough with the organism to know what specific characters to include in your photograph (for example, the app is more likely to be able to identify a plant from a photo of the flower than one of a single leaf). I often get an ID correct to the genus level in plants and species level for many animals. Even if I only get as far as a family-level ID, I know where to turn for further info. I often get a second or third ID within a week or two. Great app!

GPS nags. Gave it another shot recently. Glad to see login requirements are relaxed. Identification suggestions are surprisingly good at narrowing down possibilities if you’re not sure what you’re looking at, though I’d be hesitant to rely on them as the final word of course. One thing which would be useful in the Suggestions section is the ability to flip between your photo(s) and those of the suggestions for easier comparison. Access to dichotomous keys would be cool too, or at least inclusion of identifying features which would appear in the keys. It’d also be worth considering inclusion of brief warnings on important aspects such as toxicity. UI could do with streamlining as well, but I’ll hold off on going into that for now. Original complaint over Location Services still relevant though—it doesn’t seem to have a way to enter your location manually as the dev said would be done in an update. It’s also baffling why the app wants to use LS while using the Suggestions tool when it already has locations set for each photo; there’s no reason to assume a user will be searching for suggestions anywhere near where the data was gathered, so it’s asinine to do this. Or shady. Original review, April 2017: As others point out, the app is set up to rely on location services being on. Nope! Not doing it, guys. This also makes it tedious to explore areas you're not currently in. Deleting this nagware.

Love this app!!. I love being able to identify local plants and bugs when I am out in nature or just taking care of my own garden. Being able to participate in a community of likeminded community scientists is amazing! I think there is still room for improvement in the app - some things that would improve it in my opinion are: being able to sort or filter map results or personal observation history, being able to see when your observation is added to a collection/project (i only see that in email notifications, not in the app), and perhaps even a feature like “unidentified specimens in your area” that shows recent observations with no identifications, to help encourage more people to respond! Really love this app and all that your team is doing, and will be continuing to use it for many years to come, hopefully! :)

Very great!. This app can be super useful to identify bugs, animals, plants, and more! I originally downloaded this app when I actually was bit by a strange bug that appeared in my home. This app was super helpful, and was able to identify the bug I was bit by. I have actually tested this apps animal detection system, and it works 90% of the time. I was able to gather pictures of animals online, end upon scanning them with the app, most came out to be what the animal really was. However, there are times where the system fails to get the right animal, usually these times are due to the image itself. The animal identification system works best with zoomed in and clear photos of the animal or plant, however will still work sometimes with blurry or zoomed out pictures. And towards the end of my test, I scanned a picture of a person I found online, which sadly said it was inconclusive on determining what the “animal” was. I rated this 4/5 stars because it sometimes fails, but for the most part works. Thanks for this amazing app!

Learn & contribute to community science simultaneously!. Powerful app to identify and contribute to the general knowledge about “who else lives here” including plants, mammals, birds, insects, fungi, algae, etc. A combination of machine-learning algorithms and knowledgeable human experts helps ID each observation. You can take photos while you are out and upload them later, or try to get suggested IDs on site. If you are an expert about a taxonomic group or a specific area, perhaps you can contribute IDs to the observations of others. The observations are available to scientists (and anyone) who might want to use them in their work, or just to see what has been observed near by. It’s the best and most accurate way i have found to learn the local species (aside from studying a real binomial key), without relying on sketchy IDs.

Sadly it’s way too buggy. I really wanted to like this app. Unfortunately the irritations started the moment I installed it. First, developers should disclose mandatory login requirements. Most app users are like me: I’m not keen on setting myself up for a spam storm until I’ve had a chance to determine if a new app is useful. This app appears to be virtually non-functional if you skip the login step. Then the error message start. LOTS of them one after another, and they’re the classic head-scratcher sort that make the user feel stupid because you have no idea what they mean or what to do to stop them. Five minutes of this was my limit. This app sounds like a nice idea, and the well-done illustrations featured in the App Store and the splash screens fooled me into thinking the app was designed by an experienced developer. It’s not. The user experience is just no good. Please hire a good UX designer and try again. You’ll likely find that 10x more people who download the app will continue to actually use it if you improve the UX. The concept is good. However as it stands it goes straight to “Delete”.

Love the app maybe make it more like a social network of naturalists?. I really love this app and use it pretty much daily since I’ve downloaded it. It’s great to have with you to quickly identify a species using the picture instead of having to go and google the characteristics of what you saw and hope it knows what you mean. I would like to see them update it with a section where you can go to a person’s profile and see all of their observations in one place like the way you view a project and all of its observations. Perhaps even add an option to follow a particular person and then see all the observations of people you follow in a feed. You can do kinda already do this but you have to search for the person and then be confined to whatever given map area you have on your screen. I think it would be better to have all of them on one page because sometimes I come across an observer whose observations I like (camera quality, focus on a specific species, or just like their observations) and I want to see all of them. Also, they should add a place where you can view all of the observations you’ve added to your favorites.

Nature Nazi’s. I loved the app for all the reasons noted in the other reviews. I used it for about a year and was enjoying contributing to the documentation of wildlife in my area. When I had an observation and couldn’t capture a picture it made sense to use the picture they provided in the identification process. Well I did that for 3 or 4 observations and they sat there for months. Then one day some lady starts leaving condescending comments on those posts that I can’t do that and that she was going to report me. Which she did. And they wrote me more elitist condescending comments. AND I am pretty sure they deleted one of my own photos…they don’t deserve it anyway. I’m sure they took my photos and observation data to use for their own benefits. So sign up but beware your working unpaid for ungrateful condescending elitist academics. This is why the massive social potential of the app goes right by them unnoticed. They have no social clues and they don’t care what the users want as long as they post content for them to steal.

My favorite world. This wonderful app extends your pleasure in exploring the world, sparks your curiosity and deepens your knowledge all at the same time. Your own photos are the starting point to dig in and find out more about plants, animals, and natural phenomena anywhere in the world. You get to be a part of a friendly community that collectively has a huge amount of knowledge and enjoys sharing it. You get to use, for free, the creative work of the coders and designers at iNat who are figuring out better algorithms and integrating new science data all the time. Using iNat encourages you to take a generalist’s exploratory approach to the natural world - to look at everything. Not only is it a great app in its own right, it’s also a terrific field asset when used in conjunction with apps that concentrate on one element of the natural world, such as birds or trees. Along the way, your photography improves because you figure out how to take pictures that capture and reveal the most. You learn to see better and to see more.

It’s amazing and it could be more amazing. I love inat. I use it all the time. The taxonomy suggestions are almost always on point. I use it to explore areas I already am familiar with too to learn about the things living around me I’ve never heard of. Even the projects and guides are cool, because I can see which species in a group are most commonly encountered based on how many times they’ve been observed compared to others. The range maps you get for species etc are dynamic. BUT, the social component to me is abysmal. “Leaderboard?” No one cares. It’s a meaningless statistic. I’d like to be able to see who is observing similar things to me in an area. Who is consistently identifying a specific phylum or genus? (Not me lol). They should be acknowledged as someone with some knowledge in that area. I know inat has powerful algorithms capable of identifying species based on photos - use some of those algorithms to connect peoples’ observational powers and curiosity. Sometimes I observe something that scientist haven’t completely determined what subspecies lives in my specific area- why can’t scientists send out questions for people to find out? Don’t know the southernmost extent of a plant? Ask people who have observed it before and live in the area to look for it. This is a powerful app for taking citizen science to the next level. I’d love to see what they can do.

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Great service. This is proving to be an invaluable app, as it is not just an automated response that leaves you wondering what you’ve found - there’s a knowledgeable community out there keen to confirm an id. Wonderful!

Great research platform. Love the simplicity of having a record of animals you’ve found with times and dates. Easy to look for a specific type of animal after seeing where others have viewed them

Fun to use. A fun app to use and one that helps with logging biodiversity. Fast response to questions also. It would be helpful if you sort the observations by species I.e. all the birds together, all the spiders together, that sort of thing.

App not working. App will not open since the day after the last update.

iNaturalist review. Very informative and very helpful. All suggestions to species helped me figure out what was happening in the yard and all around. However, when adding the location, it was difficult but overall, it is an app worth the time.

Wonderful. Great app that serves as a huge first step in identifying organisms. It’s also a fun way of seeing what is in your locality and collecting photographic specimens. Altruistic education enabler.

Fun & Educational. I love this app so much, I use it at work with children to identify different plants and animals they come across. I’m not sure who likes it more, me or the kids!

So good. I love to know that people are actually looking at my inputs and I love being able to recognise and learn from country with iNaturalist help

A bit glitchy. Glitches on sign up and when geo locating. Also a few functions are hard to identify as a newcomer. Hopefully this will resolve itself.

My go-to for ID’ing unique discoveries. This app is a gem. Upload a good picture or two of a natural wonder, and if you don’t know what it is you can get suggestions from the app (or leave it as “unknown” and one of the many knowledgeable members will make the ID for you).

Incredible app!. Love the accurate identification and mapping. Amazed at the rapid reviewing and helpful comments. What a great learning tool - I‘ve been recommending it to everyone I know

Putting nature on my phone. I have been trying to find a way to record everything around me on the farm. A sea of unknown plants and critters now has a home! We’ll done iNaturalist.

I love iNaturalist. This app is amazing. I love taking photos of plants when I go for a walk in nature. iNaturalist has helped me learn to identify the species of many plants I wasn’t quite sure about.

Fish category. I know it’s not scientific but can we have an easy search of all fishes?

Use too much storage. Could u fix this problem or bug? It’s keeping use more storage when u post observations.

Very cool. So nice to see what wildlife and plants are around you in any area. It’s like having a guide. Would easily pay for a copy of the app but have donated instead via the app. Would really love to be able to see all the favourites I have left in one place. Also would like to be able to favourite the official information pages so I can collate them.

Fun to observe. I don’t know a whole lot about in particular the bugs or plants in my area so this has been really cool to observe the fun things I see and have other people confirm or correct my observations!! And to take pictures of cool little guys :)

The best resource for citizen scientists. One of my favourite apps on my phone which I open atleast once a day. The only thing lacking would be the ability to organise/filter/sort observations to assist with looking over past data. I assume this is possible on the website but most only use the app.

Apple phone doesn’t compare the results. I find this app the best app right now for ID. On my old Samsung phone I could compare the results to my photos. Now on my iPhone I can’t do that anymore. Any chance to add this feature?

Having issues. I can’t upload my observations, please fix!

INaturalist is the best idea ever. I get so much enjoyment out of uploading my photos for identification. It’s greatly helped my identification in the field too. Everytime I go on holiday or to a new area I like to check iNaturalist to see what others have spotted, and then see if I can spot the same or even other species. I feel like I’m completing a real life Pokédex 😄

Great but could be improved. Love the app for identification and info but would be better if it allowed upload to continue in background instead of having to wait for the upload before doing anything else, it’s usually slow to upload so this is inconvenient. Also allowing multiple uploads at once would be good too.

Brilliant app for ID-ing all things. Brilliant. Allows uploads of plants or animals and if the photos are clear and detailed enough it almost always correctly identifies what you’ve taken a picture of.

Easy to use and rewarding citizen science. I love iNaturalist! It’s probably the most user friendly citizen science app I’ve used, and it’s remarkably accurate with its suggested identifications. I tend to capture and upload bat records - and always see the same experts in bat ID confirming my identification and leaving comments, and I love the sense of community that comes with that!

Needs work. Has a lot of potential but there are just a few quality of life things that need to be added like being able to look at other peoples profiles

Five stars. I am new to iNaturalist but have fallen in love with it. The amount of information is amazing, and I’m learning quickly to ‘navigate’ my way. There is just such an amazing amount of information embedded in this App.

Perfect!. So great for people who love exploring wildlife and I love that it contributes to scientific research. Also the species identification is usually pretty accurate which is great!

Great identification tool. Great app for documenting and building knowledge base around local flora and fauna. Gives the ability to see/contribute to different local projects is great too!

App for everyone!. Well made and easy to use app, very helpful and active community. This app is for everyone, beginners and experts. Help people identify flora and fauna, or have others help you identify flora and fauna! By getting involved with this app, you better your knowledge in plants, animals, and identifying them; but most importantly you are helping in improving the environment around us. I encourage everyone to download this app!

Wonderful App. Does three main things for me: 1. Allows me to contribute photos. 2. Helps with identification of things I see. 3. Networks me with like minded people.

It’s a great platform, but.... I love the idea of community science and iNaturalist allows a platform for all sorts of people to increase the knowledge. However, iNaturalist is seriously limited by the use of species databases that are deficient, especially in respect to botanical taxonomy.

Great app 👍🏻👍🏻. The app is very helpful if you need/ want to know what something is for example; plants or animals. People are also able to comment on what you think it is and what they think it is. I recommend this to everyone and anyone who has a heart for anything like this animals, plants ect... 2 thumbs up 👍🏻 👍🏻

Excellent app. I am an avid Citizen Scientist, especially interested in Australian spiders. They are so beautiful and there are so many. I love how iNat users help me to identify them and I also love that I am helping to map the biodiversity of the region. iNat is so easy to use. My only regret is that it took so long for me to get around to using it.

App not working. App keeps saying error uploading observation's? Found out why, apparently you have to put your credit card info in now, not comfortable with that, it’s supposed to be a free app. Seems since the recent publicity greedy developers are cashing in. Sad:(

Love it. Inaturalist is so good! If you are into photographing the living breathing life forms on our planet It justifies having kept those 20,000 photos of creatures you felt pangs of guilty about and it will finally make you ditch the crappy ones. Most importantly your mind will be blown by the diversity and how much you don’t know about life on earth, even if you thought you knew a fair bit.

The app version... As a huge fan of iNatralist I can say for a fact that this app is missing a lot from the website. To be honest I just want the ability to duplicate an observation (which I don’t believe you can do on the app, but if you can, let me know). I just really hope some new features get added in a new update other than that though, it’s a great app! :) Almost 5 stars

Great way to connect with local wildlife. Love seeing what species have been spotted around me, wherever I go. And love adding my own ID’s!

Amazing mapping and identifying from novice to expert. Anyone interested in learning about, or mapping plants, animals and insects will find this an exceptional tool. Snap a photo and have instant id thanks to AI. It will mark the exact location, then you can obscure this location to a general area to protect exact location. What a way to learn and document. Amazing.

App. App has always worked great but the last couple of days it won’t open just immediately crashes and when l click on app support just takes me to info about the app. I’ve deleted off phone and re downloaded but still does the same thing.

The coolest app ever. I’m in Brisbane Australia and people ID everything here! I’ve learned so much. So simple but probably my favorite app of all time

Love love love it -. Easy to use, mostly accurate and lots of specialists on board to correct you if suggested id fails. Would like additional functions for communication and notifications when interacting with other peoples IDs.

Wonderful citizen science. I love the iNaturalist community, sharing images, info and helping each other with taxonomy. The app has a few good features but it’s also quite clunky in some areas. The good: The ability to upload while offline. Suggested ID, and the option to limit this to local species. Commenting and discussions. The bad: You can’t download your observations for access while offline. You can’t sort your observations by anything except date added. Making it super hard to find species. I’d like to sort by name, either binomial or common. You can’t view your observations as a grid in the iOS app, only in the browser. The search is abysmal, to search your own observations you have to go to ‘explore’ then tap ‘search my observations’ then unless you have the binomial name memorised I find it impossible. It also suggests plants that you haven’t even ID’d. The ability to follow others or see those you follow is only is the web version, not the app. All in all, I’m a fan but the app could do with some work.

Sensational. Finally a scientific platform to load all those interesting critters and plant records that would ordinarily end up in a diary in a bottom drawer never to see the light of day. The ‘suggested ID’ function is great to get you on the way to identifying the creatures around us. The interaction between experts from around the world and your own local sighting is simply amazing. I’m hooked!!

Excellent but the app is lacking basic functionality. It’s a good community but the app itself is very dated in 2024. Basic features of the desktop website are not available in the mobile app.

Perfect for Identifying Animals and Gathering Info!!!. I’ve been using iNat for a while now and it’s sooo gooood!!! It can help you find out about animals around you and what they are and also what types of animals are near you like seeing if there are seal colonies near you!! I suggest all animal lovers and anyone curious to get this app!!!

Learning more about. I enjoy that I can take a photo and learn what the names of bugs, animals or plants are

The Symbiotic Stumbler. Love it I have just changed my name to reflect how I come across natures wonders that I need help identifying

Such a helpful community. Rarely write reviews, but I find the community - real people! - responding swiftly and helpfully to the things I find in my garden or elsewhere outdoors so helpful! Thank you iNaturalist community. Great app.

INat is fun. This is a fantastic resource for sharing information and knowledge and for supporting people’s enthusiasm for natural history

Excellent ID tool and important project. It’s a pleasure to use the app, the automatic ID is surprisingly accurate, I learn lots about my natural surroundings, and it’s a fabulous feeling to be contributing data to such an important citizen science project, useful to researchers, and making the data available to whoever wants to explore. Well done everyone!

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Wonderful app. Simply brilliant.

Brings me SO much joy!. Love it!! Connects me to nature & my community so well, and I’ve learned so much!

Essential tool for urban and rural naturalists. Help you community track indigenous species.

Enjoy your walks even more with iNaturalist. This is a terrific app to take along on a hike to identify wildlife you encounter along the trail. Thanks to iNaturalist, I have learned to identify countless plants, trees, mosses, lichens and even birds. This app is useful for nearby hikes and when you travel too. Highly recommended.

Brilliant. A brilliant and well designed app

App crashes when scrolling observations. Whenever I scroll the photos from others peoples’ observations, the app crashes when I get to the third or 4th image. On iPhone 12 mini.

Love Nature, Love iNat. Great app for collecting observations, identifying nature and helping document & conserve biodiversity. Easy to use, all you need is your phone/camera and the app. Photograph the flora & fauna all around you, when you go for walks, hikes, vacation.

Inaturalist. J’adore cette application. J’aime la nature et apprendre à la connaître mieux est tellement intéressant. Grâce à l’identification par des pros qui s’assurent de bien identifier mes photos qui sont souvent acceptées au niveau de la recherche, je sens que chaque petit gestes posés peut faire une différence !

Excellent. I love inaturalist and other than ID books never use anything else. I highly recommend.

helpful 😎. helpful having lots of people to identify 😎creatures and things you don’t know

Bravo!. En ces temps de crise de la biodiversité, tout le monde devrait participer à ce projet de science citoyenne des plus importants.

Nope. In order to create an account, I MUST agree to share my personal data. NO! I can/will share the data in specific instances, but NOT as a global permission.

Great app! Should make a widget!. Would be 5 stars if they had a widget! Can’t count how many times I’m scrambling opening up my camera to ID some new creature or plant!! It would be great to just click a button from the Home Screen that takes you right to the sound ID/ photo ID.

Love it. I now know the plants, weeds, trees and bugs in my backyard. Easy to use too!

Must have for nature lovers. Absolutely love this app. Wonderful concept and the app works well, no bugs that I have noticed. I have supported this app voluntarily and will continue to do so. Such a valuable resource, thank you iNat team!

Citizen Science. I’ve used this app for years and it just gets better and better. I use it both personally and professionally at work to record and learn more about the biodiversity around me.

User beware — latest edition violates App Store privacy rules. Very disappointed to see what’s become of iNaturalist. The latest edition requires users to consent to tracking and data harvesting which is in violation of Apple’s App Store privacy rules (as well as in violation of any reasonable respect of users). I can only assume that the group behind this app and service has sold out to corporate interests. Deleting the app from my device and closing my account.

Science at its finest and easiest. A powerful, interesting and important tool for scientists, nature enthusiasts and environmentalists.

I love INaturalist. INaturalist is very easy to navigate around and enter your finds. We are sharing valuable information weather you know it or not. Wonderful talks are offered that explain the where and how and why of sharing.

So far so good.. What a great idea. Community science can potentially make contribution to total human knowledge. We live in an age of disinformation and many of our leaders in high office are uneducated idiots. Similarly, the level of science education of the general public is quite poor and any scheme which increases the public interest in STEM subjects is a wonderful thing. The app seems like a great portal. Who knows what you could discover?

Gardener. Excellent

Great app. So helpful for beginners looking to learn about the environment around them!

Excellent site. Very informative and helpful.

Langue. Dommage que l’anglais ne soit que la seule option pour les vidéos tutoriel et presque partout ailleurs même pour faire un achat les prix ne sont pas transformé en dollar canadiens Mais pour le reste bravo 👍

Amazing. Powerful app, easy to use, benefits the scientific community, and fun!

Not working in Canada. I tried to access the Canadian version when prompted but then it does not work. And app will not allow me to enter a username or email. Very strange.

Great app. Love this interactive app. I learn a lot and am excited to share my discoveries.

Privacy concerns. Very disappointed to find I can no longer use this app unless I agree to my personal info going to the US.

Outstanding tool. Outstanding tool for engaging people regardless of their nature background to the natural world. Bravo

Excellent learning tool. I’ve used this app a lot on our new-to-us property, and learned so much about the plants and animals that live here in the dozens of posts I’ve put up. From bears to Northern Black Widow spiders, and everything in between, our little patch of land is more diverse than I thought. This knowledge gained through the app has given me a greater appreciation for nature in all her abundance.

Extremely useful, and potentially addictive. I can’t imagine trying to consistently identify species without this app these days, and now I’m compelled to photograph any cool insects that I see lol. 10/10

Great at figuring out what we see. If I don’t know an animal or plant I can take a photo and usually figure out what I saw. If I am wrong, people who have more expertise can advise me what I really saw. I love that.

Review. Have enjoyed using program especially for learning about insect species unfamiliar to me and helped by experts such as in bee ID (Dr John Ascher for example)…very helpful!

Excellent app. This is by far the best app for identifying the natural world, for plants to birds to mammals, it works very well and allows you to cooperate with others.

Inconsistent. It’s a great concept, but my experience so far is that the App is glitchy. It regularly crashes and closes when I’m in the middle of entering data. And often it doesn’t save edits.

Enjoyable.. I started with the Seek app (which I still use but you can’t transfer observations between) but this one is more interesting in a way — people verifying the ID helps me feel more confident about the accuracy.

Great app. What an excellent app. Truly appreciate it and the reviews on submissions. High quality

Too many “experts” being disrespectful. Tired of being talked down to by “experts”. Having people from the southern U.S. correct me about breeding and migration times ir bird abundance for central Ontario based on their local experience is just one example.

Love this app!. Still figuring it all out but I love having an app to satisfy my geeky Naturalista self.

Handy identification tool!. Accurate and fun to use!

Great App but no Extra Info for iPhone Users. I love this app! It has a lot of useful information; however, on the iPhone app, the extra information tab about species is not accessible in the app - there is just a link to the website to see more. Additionally, the interface and search could be made more friendly, but otherwise this is amazing app with a supportive scientific community.

Love love love. Citizen science for the win! Data from this app directly helps biologists, conservationists, horticulturists ,and more track and study organisms in our ecosystems!

Exceptionally helpful. - this app is amazing, from logging my finds to figuring out new species, looking at guides and resources within the app is wonderful. My need to know exactly what everything is has been satisfied

The most frustrating website ever!. Whoever designed and came up with this abomination of a web site should be tarred and feather and run out of town!

Best app. I would highly recommend iNaturalist. Not only is it much more accurate at identifying plants and animals than any other app I’ve tried, but the data can be used for scientific research to help better understand animals. When the app or myself cannot identify something usually one of the other users on the app can which is very helpful. It’s also a great tool for when I want to know the current range of an animal or if a certain animal is found in a specific location. I love iNaturalist!

Share your knowledge about the natural world. I am using this app as part of an assignment around personal inquiry in my Teacher Librarian diploma. I love being able to quickly upload photos, even at the moment I take them, find a possible match, and by the time I get home, another community member has helped ID my photo. THIS is a great use of technology! And with the help of the community, I am learning more and more. Working together, building knowledge and skills together, and contributing to the scientific community makes this app very worthwhile. I tell everyone who loves the outdoors and is interested in what they see to try it out!

Very cool. Great app for anyone interested in biology!

Awesome Citizen Science App. So much fun, accessible, useful.

It’s iNaturalist, need I say more? IT IS AMAZING!. I recommend iNaturalist to EVERYONE! The only app I have ever told someone they should download. From discovering new species, expanding known ranges of occurrence, to building interest in community science and making it available to anyone with internet connection.

Cool. Cool!

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I have learned so much!. I discovered this app last Spring! It inspires me to hike more and take high-quality pictures and then identify the species mainly of flora but occasionally fauna that I see on my hikes or even walks in my yard. It used to put the location of the pictures automatically but now I have to add it. That may be a setting change that occurred with the last several iOS updates that had privacy upgrades. It's a minor hassle to add the location but then again, once I had a chicken of the woods mushroom harvested out from under me...

Amazing, life-changing (seriously). This app sparked my interest in plants and wildlife when I started using it. Since then, I’ve become very involved in the iNaturalist community over the past few years and it has become a huge part of my life. I’ve learned so much by posting species from my area and reading experts’ responses. It’s truly eye-opening and also lots of fun! Take some time to learn how it works a bit, and then start paying attention to all of the plants, birds, insects, animals, fungi, and every other living thing you encounter. Once you start noticing stuff it becomes a habit and you will see the world differently.

So cool but not user friendly. I love this app and what it does, I don’t like the navigation if you’re trying to do anything other than submit an observation. I posted an audio file(which I can’t figure out on the app, did it on web page) someone posted a comment which shows in activities, but I had posted several that day, and it was nearly impossible to tell which observation she was commenting on from the activity screen. Date and time settings are clunky too. If you take photos off line then try to submit later it’s almost impossible to set the correct meta data.

One of the best identification apps!. This is my favorite identification app. Not only do you get to identify plants, animals, bugs, and fungi, but you also get to mark where you saw them and can even see other people’s sightings. You can comment and agree with other people’s identifications as well! The identification is very accurate! Also, this app is free to use! This is one of the few identification apps that don’t require an expensive subscription. The only thing that gets on my nerves is when there are many pins close together, it can be difficult to click on each one. I think it would be great if you could zoom in more. Other than that small issue, it’s a fantastic app!

You should get this app!. I would say this app is one of my life-changing apps. You know all those times when you’re looking at a bug or a plant or a tree or a bird and you wonder what in the world it is and now it’s not even a question anymore! All you have to do is take a picture and load it up into the app and press that what am I seeing bar and you get a suggestion! It is so super easy and so rigorous, and I am very impressed with the community of naturalists who help make identifications. I hope that in some small way my observations may be helpful to scientists too.

If you love nature, you should have this app. I’ve been using this app for a few years now and I think it works very well. I like to hike and take photos of flora and fauna. This gives me a place to put my photos and people can use the explore function to see what animals, bugs, flowers and other plants are found in different parts of the world. I’ve put up photos from our travels to Italy and Indonesia as well. Because I am not knowledgeable about flora and fauna, except for the most common species, I love the features of: 1. Automatic suggestions for what the animal or plant is based on the photos I post; 2. iNaturalist users from around the world help with identification. This is a great app.

Incredibly Fun, User-Friendly, and Indispensable. This app was recommended to my friends and me by a park worker after we expressed frustration with a different plant identification app that required a paid subscription. Turns out, this one is far superior in every way imaginable. It is owned by the prestigious California Academy of Sciences and National Geographic, it’s very intuitive and easy to use, and it costs nothing. I love that images I upload have the potential to aid in ecological studies, or even help other wildlife enthusiasts identify local flora and fauna. I’ve been recommending it to friends and just love it.

I recommend you all the time. I have had iNaturalist app for about two years now and I love it!!! I have used other nature apps before, one for plants and one for bird identification, this one is definitely the fastest easiest way to ID all the critters I find. I work at Home Depot in the garden and constantly have customers coming in with bugs and plants wanting to know what it is. I take pictures of their stuff and post it. They are always surprised how fast I get an answer. Then I suggest they get iNaturalist also 😀 So glad I found you guys.

Great App, Explore Function Lacking. I’ve been really enjoying this app over the last month, but the explore function could use better filters. To search observations in a more restricted area, you’re required to zoom in/out on the map. It would be a ton more useful to simply put in a text filter, such as a state or county rather than trying to fine tune a maps view extent. I really like the ability to upload observance photos directly from your phones image gallery after you’ve left the field. Definitely helps conserve data usage. Relatively easy to navigate the app, and very fun to see what others around you are observing!

iNat is my super power!. My property is on the foothills of a small mountain and my yard is sloped with woodland native and non native species. 2 years ago trees were removed nearby allowing 100% more sun on my hill and much more woodland abundance like I have never seen in 20 years. This spring has been amazing with new growth and thriving patches of flowering weeds and medicinals. iNat lets me keep up with what’s growing or migrating here as I cultivate a natural habitat for birds, plants and woodland wildlife. I can make notes as to growth timelines throughout the growing seasons and have it all handy next spring so I can know what to watch for /keep as my native hill evolves. Thanks iNaturalist!

Needs work. Love iNaturalist but the app itself is severely lacking. Considering this is what people use most while out exploring and that everyone is on their mobile devices more than a computer, you’d think it would be more of a priority to upgrade its features. I’d like to be able to respond to comments by tagging that person, follow people, usernames be clickable to go to their pages, add videos or sound clips to ID’s, add more than 4 pics, etc. The website itself is fantastic, just wish more of its features were in the app as I’m not on a computer very often and the safari version of the site has no mobile version so you can’t read it or interact well. Are any of these things in the works for future updates?

Excellent teaching and research tool. I use this app every day in the context of both teaching and research. Between this app interface and the even deeper tools of the web interface, there is endless potential to explore the natural world in creative ways. I teach natural history to amateurs and this app opens up new practices and new questions all the time. It’s the ideal marriage of digital technology and traditional nature study. It also turns casual hikes or walks into fun scientific adventures. I esp like that I have had the opportunity to interact with experts who identify my records or offer helpful insights. I would not normally have this kind of opportunity.

Fabulous app!. As a child, I was rarely without my Peterson’s Field Guides (rocks, shells, reptiles and amphibians, insects, spiders...) and was an avid collector of—well, just about anything I picked up in the fields or woods. This interest continued into my adult life, and now, as a 67-year-old woman, I’m still bringing home turtle shells, rocks, birds’ nests, and cicada casings. This app has been marvelous in its ability to identify and inform. That wasp you see may be a Mud Dauber, or a European Wasp—or maybe not a wasp at all! Is your Praying Mantis a Carolina, or Arizona, or California species? Before you kill that tick, wouldn’t you like to know if it’s a Common Dog Tick or from the Lone Star State? I can’t recommend this app highly enough. Bravo!

Unique and groundbreaking app. As a PhD student in botany, this is one of the best apps I’ve ever used. It teaches you so much about the flora and fauna of wherever you are and contributes to citizen science and research on species distribution. A great contribution to people and science. My only suggestion are: make it easier to upload multiple photos at once (right now you have to do it one at a time and it is a bit clunky) and allow users (besides the original observer) to flag some observations as captive/cultivated when some of them clearly are. The latter is more for science as this data is usually more valuable for wild organisms.

Used to love it.. Two years ago, I would have given the app five stars, definitely! I loved the way it is was so easy to use for bird identification… and so much easier (and better!) than eBird. Loved it!! But now, when I look for what birds have been seen in an area, I have to sift and scroll through SO MUCH other stuff!!! There are sooo many plant entries. I have only entered three things July-October because the joy has been zapped and frustration has replaced it. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND that iNaturalist split into different apps: one for birds (like iAvian or something), one for plants (maybe iBotany), one for all insects, one for mammals or animals, etc., etc. Please also get rid of the extra step that you added in the update from early summer….the one where I look for an identification recommendation, and the app says it’s not confident (blah, blah, blah) and I have to click on something else. Plain and simple: apps should get easier to use, not harder. And finally, please stop allowing stupid entries, like when people posts “bird” or “tree” as the ID. There needs to be a modicum of knowledge or effort to find out what one is posting. Thanks!

iNaturalist. So my review might be a bit of an anomaly because I started using this excellent app sporadically, then took it to Ecuador and the Galapagos on a very special trip, and became obsessed with it there because it’s literally impossible not to see Ecuador and the Galapagos and not become fanatical about our extraordinary natural world. However there is a problem this app uniquely solves that I haven’t seen another app solve before like it, and simply put, this app can make it possible for an amateur Naturalist to learn about their world within a supportive network of professional Naturalists anywhere at any time they decide to start that journey and for that reason I say this app is exceptional on its own merits.

Overall great app. I’ve been using this app for a while and it has a lot of “observations” contributed by users so there is plenty to explore. The biggest drawback for me is I’m only interested in edible plants and not animal sightings, insects, mushrooms, or flowers, but there is no option to narrow down the observations. Also, when there are stacked observations in the map view you have to switch to a list view to see them all because they limit the zoom controls to where you cannot zoom in far enough to separate them.

Love it but..... I love this app so much I’ve used it for years now! But it needs an update, BADLY!!!! I have been waiting for it to give us a better way to go back and search our post like it does on the website by using true calendar option or at least putting everything in date order on the posting tab. Still such an amazing app but I am hopefully for some upgrades! Still waiting for some upgrades on the app like the online version. So you can go back and look at your calendar dates or at least sort by date order so I don’t double post. 😢

Better than other plant apps: Real people contributing to open science. Not only does the iNat AI continue to amaze, but the community of scientists and citizens coming together to document the world’s flora is inspiring. Instead of relying solely on the AI’s ability, iNat gives you access to this community to confirm your IDs and add them to a huge, open database whose eventual impact is incalculable. Because it’s owned and operated by non-profits, we can be confident that this store of data will be made available to scientists for decades. If you’ve tried other plant ID apps, it’s time to upgrade.

Difficult to add multiple photos. This app is excellent for the science community and is basically Facebook for us plant nerds. However, with one of the last updates, when you go to make an observation and add a picture, you have to individually add each one. Once you add a picture, it makes you go through multiple screens to get back to your photo album to add another. Before, you could select multiple photos from your album and add them all at the same time. Keep in mind that quite often multiple pictures are required to correctly identify a plant. I wouldn’t say this makes the app unusable but it makes it very inconvenient which means I will be using it less and less until the issue is fixed.

Learn & contribute to community science simultaneously!. Powerful app to identify and contribute to the general knowledge about “who else lives here” including plants, mammals, birds, insects, fungi, algae, etc. A combination of algorithms and knowledgeable human experts helps ID each observation — and/or perhaps you can contribute IDs to the observations of others. The observations are available to scientists (and anyone) who might want to use them in their work, or just to see what has been observed near by. You can take photos while you are out and upload them later, or try to get suggested IDs on site.

My Dream Come True. This app was introduced to me by an intern who is working at the Deering Estate in Palmetto Bay, Fl. I’m of an age where I kinda hate my phone (ugh, all this technology while looking at nature?) but do love to take photos so I can research the animal/plant when I get home. So this is a game changer. I no longer have to pull up my photos while juggling 3 plant books and make a guess. I don’t have to chase down my kids incredibly patient camp counselors and stick my phone in their face asking “what it is?” How amazing is this? You can see where other people have seen the same thing! And the info is right there! So ok you got me. This rocks.

Awesome!. I love being able to immediately record and identify anything I find outside! Plants and animals alike are suddenly MUCH easier to ID. No more lugging around half a dozen field guides. Or trying to identify things after I've left the location, only to realize that I didn't observe key characters. I also love that the community can help with identifications. This is like being able to consult a whole crew of experts! I do wish the app would allow you to follow others and communicate with them the way the web site does. If I could find and follow others, go to other users' observations, and somehow tag others whom I believe could help with identifying my observations then I would be giving 5 stars.

My favorite app!!!. I love iNaturalist!!! It is so cool!!! Much easier than buying, who knows how many books. I’d never have the right identification book or field guide when I needed it. It’s a great way to learn about the nature world where ever I go. This app has motivated me to explore. I was supper excited to find this app, it’s my favorite. I wanted to be a scientist, biologist, or a naturalist, but being dyslexic, spelling is very hard for me and Latin was my worst nightmare. It’s neat that my observations can help others in their scientific research. Ether way this app has been incredible, and has kicked up my favorite hobby to high gear. Thank you iNaturalist!

Actually free nature dictionary beautiful collections of hd wildlife you won’t find elsewhere. I’ve installed so many “free” encyclopedia/dictionary apps of wildlife/plant/fungi/insect libraries or identification only to be met with paywalls or subscriptions I understand the devs need funding but we all can agree libraries of such information should be as free as the animals we capture through the lenses of our cameras so the scientific community can accurately gather data young/curious minds get educated or even become biologists or care takers of some kind truly impacted my day to day life huge shout out for having this free other “free” apps don’t get it if I wanted to pay for it would’ve gone to a 2.99 download button LOL!

Amazing app; updates for social and viewing favs wanted!. Overall one of my favorite apps. First app I click on when I get on my phone! Adam Nicke’s June 3 review is right on. Would love the ability to click on the user and see their observations; ask them questions; @ them, etc. Maybe the social element is not what you’re after but it would make the app more fun and more useful...we could more easily compare notes and work together to ID before adding to the site (or could edit lists and false IDs). Also, if there was a social element here I think I would find myself very definitely tipping the balance away from IG towards here...I mean, who doesn’t want to talk to fellow bird, fungus, plant lovers?! Also, if we favorite something, where do we see it on the app? I would love to have a place for different albums or at least filters (for plants, fungi, mammals, etc...). There’s more to suggest but these are the big ones. Overall though, the usefulness and quality of this app already implores me to give it 5 stars. Great work. Thanks!!

Amazing app for any budding naturalist!. If you are at all curious about the natural world around you, this is the app for you! The complex and extensive neural network created by iNaturalist and the amazing community of citizen scientists and professionals in the field, ensure that your photos are identified within a day. If you know a certain taxa well (for example, birds or flowering plants), you can suggest IDs for other users and help them build their skills up. The only downside is that you have to have a photograph of your sitings, unlike eBird for example. I recommend this app to literally everyone because the more you learn about the world around you, the better you are!

I Finally Found the Species Name!. Over a year and a half ago, I found a giant moth outside of my apartment building. This thing was the size of my hand big, and I took pictures, but far enough away to make sure I didn’t disturb it. I had no idea what it was other than a big moth. I took to the internet, but because my lack of knowledge of moths, I didn’t know if I had found the right species due to multiple differences. Come today, and I see this app, and I decided “Hey, let’s see if it can identify this moth?”. So I downloaded it, uploaded the picture, and within less than 10 seconds it completely identified to species! I’m happy to finally find out the name of that moth, this app is awesome.

Inaturalist. One of the most amazing and fun apps I have seen yet for identifying everything from trees to little insects and everything in between not only do you get a share beautiful photos but you get it enjoy beautiful photos and information without discrimination thank you for creating this app it is a blessing. (without this app my family could have been in danger this app and Community helped me identify venomous creatures that are in and around my home . Also help decipher which ones were not venomous and safe to maintain a healthy environment ) thank you everybody for everything you’ve done .

Great app for nature lovers. iNaturalist is a great app for anyone who likes nature, foraging, or goes on hikes a lot. I upload anything I find on hikes and generally within a few days someone has identified it. It has a pretty good AI as well that can help identify what you see, though it can be wrong sometimes so I usually take it with a grain of salt and wait for a confirming identification by a real person. It’s great for documenting what I’ve seen where, and using the explore feature I can see where other people have observed particular species to go try and find them myself. Overall a great app that I would highly recommend!

Gotta catch’m all. I am slightly obsessed. It’s like real life Pokemon and I have to catch them all. You can go around and take pictures of plants and bugs and things in your area and then post them. They have a pretty good algorithm that will suggest what to you what you’re looking at and then a community will review your submissions and add their own comments or suggestions. I’ve already poured HOURS into this app yesterday and today finding out what a whole bunch of random critters from my old photos actually are, and learning more about the plants in my area. Aaaa I love it 10/10 recommend. Also it’s free :3

Some suggestions…. I love the app all in all, and observing many different species is addicting. I wish we could follow others or at least click their profile to see their observations. Possibly someway of communicating with one another about observations for those of us who are curious. Another suggestion would be being able to see your own stats, such as the number of species you yourself observed, the particular amount of times you have observed said species, categories for insects, plants, reptiles, etc… 10/10 would recommend the app to others and already have.

It’s okay. It’s a good enough app, but I get a bunch of glitches like taxon I didn’t search for showing up on the map. But the reason I’m rating it so low is because of its lack of basic functions that are present in the website. You can’t withdraw identifications(making users more likely to blindly agree with you), you can’t even select disagree when using a higher taxon. For example: User suggests species 2 in genus A. But you know that species 2 and 1 in genus A look too similar to identify from their pictures. So you suggest genus A only. The system takes it as “I don’t know this genus well enough to identify to species, but I’m sure it’s within this genus” rather than giving the option “There isn’t enough evidence to say it is that species, (or it is absolutely not) but it is within this genus/tribe/family” and so on. The only reason I use this app is because the website isn’t formatted right for my phone and is hard to use on my phone all the time. I know it’s hard to make an app. But it’s really annoying when an app is just a baby version of its original website.

Disappointing. Works if you have nothing to do but have the app running at all times.. A cloudless yellow sulfur butterfly was flitting about and I tried to pull up this app which I had installed just the other day. I was surprised to see that the app doesn’t have the option to “remember me” so I have to sign in each time. However, there was an error (“oops!”) so I couldn’t even sign in. The butterfly was long gone by the time the app loaded anyway. Also why can’t I upload an image from my photo gallery? This app requires that you sign in and take the images from the app. That might work for plants but you really need to either let us upload images of animals, or make a deal with them to sit still until one signs in. If one can. Useless app IMO.

Love this app!. Straight up this app is amazing; for years ive been curious about all the different flora in my yard, and suddenly I can ID just about anything! i use it for the spiders i find, too, cuz michigan is full of spiders and every day i see a new spider. i highly recommend this app for anyone wanting to learn more about the nature around them, or someone just curious about that one tree they pass everyday on their way to work. 4 stars because there’s always room for improvement!! I would suggest allowing comments on peoples specific ID’s, to say, for example, “What about X makes you think its Y species?” or, “I thought that ID was right at first, too, but upon further inspection....etc.”

Live resources. After searching for several hours over days to try to identify a bug I was finding on my flowers, I was having no luck. I used the option in the app to submit my pictures (via email) and didn’t expect a response, unsure if my request was going into a black hole where one or two people were buried, working to answer countless submissions. Surprisingly, I received a personal email response within a couple days, complete with the name of the bug and helpful links about it (including pictures of the nymph which finally 100% matched my bug pictures)! Super helpful, responsive and kind interactions.

Functionality. The app is mostly great, however, if you are actually interested in ID work on the app, it doesn’t have the functionality of the website, which is ridiculous. Every time I identify anything, I am unable to see that observation again unless i search for it on the map, and every time anyone comments on an ID, I have to look at the email iNat sends me, find the location of the observation, and find the point again to respond. Adding a messages tab or an activity tab on the app can’t be that difficult. Most people who are observing are taking photos with their smartphone, so why is the version designed for that smartphone inferior to the actual website?

Privacy concern. The default in both iNaturalist and Seek is to have a open/public pinpoint location on all submissions. This is particularly a problem for children who may be predominantly taking photos in their backyard AND Seek doesn't offer ANY option to obscure a photo's specific GPS location. A user must remember to manually everytime change the setting to "obscure" in order to not publicize where they're at. This _is_ a problem even if scientists who want to use that data are getting huffy that other people's data isn't as granular as they'd like (if you need pinpoint, reach out to the data provider and ASK PERMISSION).

Magnificent & Groundbreaking. Previously had an issue with the app that turned out to be 100% apple’s fault. iNaturalist has the potential to change the world, our society, and the way we as humans live on this Earth. Allow yourself to get excited, not just about identification, but about what is living around you and your home. Learning what grass your walking on, the birds singing in your garden, the frogs chirping in the bushes, the vines climbing your fences... It can completely change your life, and what you see when you walk down the street. I will always be a huge supporter of iNaturalist, and recommend it to every friend I have.

Needs faster photo option. This is a fun app, and can really help you connect with your garden and community scientist. My big issue with this app is that if you use the function to observe and take a picture, it goes through a series of questions asking you if you want to use the picture or not, and then if you want to take a second picture or additional angles, you have to go back and do observe, use Camera etc. At that point the insect is long gone. They need a rapid photo option, where a series of photos are taken; let us pick the best pictures later to upload. there is the option to take the pictures with your camera and then upload them into the app, but that’s a workaround that this app needs to recognize isn’t ideal.

Where are the ID helpers?. This app came highly recommended to me from staff at our local Botanic Gardens. I loved it right away and was mostly attracted to the promise of a community engagement where users help other users ID plants. But I find it very odd that someone helped me ID a plant within 1 hour of me using the app, and no one has helped me since then (almost 3 weeks and I’ve only posted 11 photos). So I cannot give this app more than 2 stars because the whole reason I was interested in it seems to be an empty promise. I now have to try to ID plants by comparing them to other plant pictures (I didn’t need this app for that — I was already doing that with basic goggle searches and other resources (and let me tell you it is a tedious, time-consuming process) or get no ID at all (making the app pointless for me). At this point I’ll likely delete the app soon. Very disappointed.

my favorite app - indispensable tool for all nature lovers. i've been using iNaturalist for over 10 years now. I fell in love with it early on and teach classes on how to use it for the California Naturalist certification course. The best way to learn is just to use it. It's really fun to explore your neighborhood or anywhere that you hike to see what other people have seen there so that you can learn what's around. It's great for plants, insects, mushrooms, Birds, mammals… Well, pretty much everything. I can't encourage you enough to go get this app and start using it right away. It changed my life and introduced me to her fantastic community of like-minded nature geeks.

Breakthrough app. Opens up a whole new world of outdoor learning and fun. So many plants, moths, mushrooms, wildflowers would catch my attention but I never knew what they were. This app helps identify them quickly and also lets you find other instances of the same species. Want to know what other species have been seen in your area? Click the explore button and view sightings on a map or in a list. The app is really well thought out - obviously designed and continuously refined by people who actually use it and listen to feedback. For those of you who use eBird - one of my other favorite apps - this is kind of like eBird but for all species - with the added bonus of helping you identify the species you don’t know!

Amazing!. This app is incredible for educational purposes and is incredibly fun. I’ve wanted to be able to log all the amazing organisms I find forever and this app allows me to do so. I love the fact that it’s not just fun but also meaningful as you are able to contribute to research. If i have one recommendation it would be to make it more social. You should be able to see someone’s account and see what they’ve observed and how many observations they have. There should be a way to follow/friend someone so for instance me and my friends can compete/ search together for certain organisms. That’s my only wish for the app, other than that it’s amazing!

Amazing, but here are some suggestions!. This app is by far my favorite nature logging app. There are no ads, no paywall, and no distractions from your photos. I love that so much! The design is sleek and the upload process is quick and easy. Beautifully designed and easy to understand. I love the map feature where you can see observations that have been made around you! A few suggestions: (pardon me if they are already features that I have just missed lol) - being able to view ONLY your favorite observations through a favorites folder (so if you’re trying to show your friends or find a specific observation you can do that more easily) - being able to make a friends list - forums for people to discuss different species in more detail - being able to comment on or like other people’s observations - achievements, milestones, or badges based on how many different species you log or some other metric (this can encourage people to log smaller things like insects or plants)

Get started learning what’s in your environment. Absolutely indispensable tool for amateur naturalists getting started on wildlife ID and useful tool for professionals gathering specific data. Visual ID is surprisingly accurate and easy to use. Anything I could improve is mostly based off the user affected data collection so I really can’t complain about much of anything in the app itself. I’d love to have an option to sort my own submissions and a search function, maybe a stats page to show you a map of your particular posts and #s such as # of unique species or # of animal/fungi/plant/etc. I promote this app to friends and family all the time.

Aquatic ecologist. I love iNaturalist, both to share flora and fauna, and also to have specialists help identify the organisms I’m unsure of. I like being able to load a picture and get back an instant list of possible identifications, both of things that are visually similar, as well those known to occur nearby. I appreciate being to load data points into a database, and I love to see the dots on a map of known occurrences. I hope iNaturalist leads to range extensions, and helps further our understanding of biodiversity. It’s pretty cool that “citizen science” data & pics can be used to further this endeavor.

Wonderful way to learn about nature. Originally used this for a biodiversity class, but continue to use it to help identify common species in the area! I do have 1 suggestion: allowing video import for observations. I love this app and I think allowing short videos to post would be very helpful especially for identifying fish or other creatures in murky waters or busy areas where a picture just doesn’t cut it! Regardless, it’s a great way to learn more and I love that my learning is actively contributing to the scientific community and helping give information to those who need it.

i love this app! i'd like the community feature to be available though :). I LOVE iNaturalist. It's so useful and simple and clean, and I love being able to ID and catalogue all the animals i find. It's really improved my time outside :) I just have one question! On the website, there are a lot of social aspects to the site, like following people and messaging and writing journal entries. I can't find a way to do any of that on the app, and I would really love it to be available. The community on iNat is one of the best parts, and I feel like I'm missing out a bit! Is there any plan to add that sort of functionality to the app in the future?

Slightly obsessed. I just moved to southern AZ and I am an avid hiker. This year we are having a superbloom, and of course, many of the plants are different from the east coast, so I am on quite a learning curve. This app is great for getting a start on the id using books, and is super helpful when you are completely stumped and embarrassed to hit up your botanist friends for the millionth time. I love that this is citizen science and that I can participate in data collection. It also creates a nice repository for my outdoor finds. I mostly use the app for plants, but when I found my first Gila Monster, I was excited to post that as well. The app is user friendly and scientifically sound. I love it.