iNaturalist

iNaturalist is a nonprofit social network of naturalists, citizen scientists, and biologists built on the concept of mapping and sharing observations of biodiversity across the globe. It began in 2008 as a UC Berkeley School of Information Master's project and later became a joint initiative between the California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society. Users upload photos or audio recordings as evidence of their encounters with organisms. The platform is based on crowdsourcing observations and identifications, where community members help each other identify organisms. In 2017, iNaturalist released an automated species identification tool. Images can be identified via a computer vision model trained on the platform's massive database of observations. The software typically provides multiple species suggestions, with the most likely guess at the top. iNaturalist serves as an important resource of open data for biodiversity research, conservation, and education. It also launched a smaller program called Seek, which allows users to point their phones at plants or animals for instant identification without needing to post to the community.