I have been fascinated with nature for as long as I can remember. As a child growing up in the tropical island of Sri Lanka I watched the birds, the butterflies, the dragonflies, the ants and many other creatures in my garden. I learned the names of some of the common birds from my mother, who, as a schoolgirl, had had a teacher who was interested in nature and knew the names of birds and taught them to her young students. One day I saw a book about the birds of Sri Lanka in a bookstore and begged my mother to buy it for me. That book was my constant companion, and helped me familiarize myself with the bird-life of Sri Lanka beyond my garden.

But what about the dragonflies, the ants and the many other creatures I saw in my garden? I knew there were many different kinds of these creatures, but I had no means of knowing what they were, as I had no means of identifying them. They were known to me only by their general Sinhala names, such as “bath-koora” for dragonfly. When I was fifteen my family moved to England and I became fascinated with the birds and other animals that I saw in my new surroundings, all of which were, of course, new to me. But unlike in Sri Lanka, the availability of many well-illustrated non-technical books for identifying practically any kind of living organism in the United Kingdom made it possible for me to expand my interest from birds to other kinds of vertebrate and invertebrate animals, including snails and slugs, spiders, millipedes, woodlice, and, of course, many kinds of insects.

About ten years ago, quite by chance, I heard about iNaturalist, which I was told would enable a person to identify any wild creature and record where and when the organism was observed. I was quite skeptical: how can a piece of software “know” more than the experts who had written the books that filled my bookshelves? I recorded my natural history observations in notebooks, so an app for that seemed pointless, too. However, since first hearing about iNaturalist I have come to understand and appreciate it much more: what it is for, how it works and how best to use it.

So, what exactly is iNaturalist? iNaturalist is a website and a smartphone app that enables users to record their observations of wild organisms (mostly with digital photographs), so that where and when an organism was photographed is recorded. The metadata in cellphone images and in photographs taken with GPS-enabled digital cameras are used by iNaturalist to display this information instantly on a map. However, the function for which iNaturalist is well known is its ability to help with identifying organisms, based on their photographs. Since most people nowadays have some understanding of how AI works iNaturalist’s ability to identify organisms from photographs might not seem like magic, but it is still worth explaining how iNaturalist is able to do this. Let’s take a common and unmistakable bird like the Blue Jay.

Numerous photographic records of this bird species, identified correctly by individual observers, and confirmed by others, have resulted in a reliably identified set of Blue Jay images. iNaturalist’s “computer vision” algorithm is trained on these correctly identified images and thereby can suggest the Blue Jay as the identification when a photograph of this species is submitted by a user. Where an organism was observed, as well as when, are important pieces of information. For example, in the eastern United States there is no other bird that could be mistaken for a Blue Jay, but in the western parts of the country there are related species (e.g., Steller’s Jay) that could be mistaken for the Blue Jay. Unlikely, but not impossible!

This brings me to an important aspect of iNaturalist that sets it apart from popular photo-sharing platforms, like Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, and so on, and marks it as fundamentally scientific, even though it is meant to be used by everyone. Unlike those platforms, iNaturalist has an extensive taxonomic database at its core. What’s that, you ask? Taxonomy is described by my AI-assisted search engine as follows: Taxonomy is the science of naming, describing, and classifying living organisms based on shared characteristics. It organizes these organisms into hierarchical groups known as taxa, which helps in understanding their relationships and biodiversity. The taxonomic framework in iNaturalist in the form of a hierarchical classification of living organisms enables observations submitted to iNaturalist to be placed in their correct “place” in this classification.

Particular kinds of organisms, like the Blue Jay and Steller’s Jay, are species. Each species has a unique two-part scientific name, consisting of the genus name and the species name. Thus, the Blue Jay is Cyanocitta cristata while Steller’s Jay is Cyanocitta stelleri. Notice that both these species belong to the same genus, Cyanocitta. Cyanocitta and other related genera (genera is the plural of genus) belong to the family Corvidae, which also includes magpies and crows. Corvidae and other related families are placed in the order Passeriformes, which, together with all the other orders of birds, forms the class Aves (birds). Birds (class Aves) and other back-boned animals form the subphylum Vertebrata, in the phylum Chordata. All the animal phyla (plural of phylum) form the great kingdom Animalia (or Metazoa). I give this example to explain the concept of a hierarchical classification.

If you have read this far you will probably say, that’s all very well but what’s that got to do with iNaturalist? Well, quite a lot, actually! When we try to identify an organism, especially with insufficient information (e.g., a poor photograph), it may not be possible to identify the organism exactly, such as to the level of species. Based on the available evidence perhaps we could only say that it probably belongs to a particular family or order. iNaturalist allows this type of broad (or general) identification. Sometimes human identifiers on iNaturalist will determine the identity of an organism, based on the evidence, approximately in this way; a general identification like this may also result from conflicting identifications.

iNaturalist can be used as a smartphone app or a website accessed with your web browser. The app is convenient, of course, and is easy to use for things that you can photograph with your cellphone’s camera, things that let you approach close without being scared off: this would obviously include plants and fungi, also many invertebrate animals, including some insects. A cellphone is not of much use for photographing organisms that don’t allow close approach and which are usually seen from a distance, such as birds. For these you do need a camera, preferably a GPS-enabled one that has some built-in telephoto (and macro) capabilities. Although some users of iNaturalist have expensive photographic equipment which enables them to capture amazing images of organisms that they concentrate on, such as birds or small insects, you do not have to spend a lot of money on expensive equipment to take photographs that are of sufficient quality for iNaturalist. Taking photographs of small organisms, such as insects, which can be approached close, can be challenging with a cellphone camera, because you need to get very close to the organism in order to capture a sufficiently large image, but most cellphone cameras will not focus at close range. The solution to this is to use a “macro” lens that can be clipped on to a cellphone that will allow close focusing. Quite good results can be had when photographing small organisms with a cellphone using such a “macro” lens attachment.

For me the greatest value of iNaturalist is the way it can increase people’s awareness and understanding of the wild organisms around them, which they may have previously dismissed as “bugs” or “weeds”. In a world that is increasingly under threat, awareness of the wild organisms that share this planet with us is necessary for its protection. In the words of Baba Doum of Senegal, “In the end we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.”

To complement this article, Dr. Wijesinghe recently gave an online talk on iNaturalist, where he explains in greater depth how the platform works, how to photograph organisms effectively, and why community-driven biodiversity records matter. The full lecture is available below:

To install the iNaturalist app on your cellphone scan the QR code below with your cellphone’s camera and open the link with the browser.

For more information about iNaturalist see the iNatHelp website.

For a detailed account of iNaturalist, see the following publication. Although it is written from an Australian perspective much of the general information in it is applicable more widely:

Mesaglio, T (2024). A Guide to iNaturalist: An Australian perspective. Atlas of Living Australia, Publication Series No. 12, Canberra, Australia, pp. 81. Retrieved from https://ala.org.au/publications/a-guide-to-inaturalist/