
iNaturalist is a social network of people helping each other learn about nature - SirLJ
https://www.wired.com/story/inaturalist-app-disconnection/
======
n8agrin
iNaturalist was the final product of my Master's degree thesis team. I haven't
contributed to it since school, about 11 years, so I don't deserve any credit
for its success. The folks who have kept it alive are personal heros - they
sacrificed a lot and invested so much to build the community that exists
today. It's probably the project I'm still the proudest to have contributed
to.

When we started, our goal was to encourage people to go outside and engage
with the world around them. We dreamt that the data gathered by the community
would be used in scientific research, but weren't confident it would ever
reach enough of a critical mass. It has! More surprisingly, we had no idea how
important iNat's image dataset would become for computer vision research.

Again, so proud of the folks who have helped to make iNaturalist thrive and so
glad it still exists in the world.

~~~
sktrdie
Evidence that doing something great doesn’t need to be through startup-
capital-based systems. One can build and study something that can be of great
importance to humanity without its core values being tainted by money.

------
elsigh
"iNaturalist is a joint initiative of the California Academy of Sciences and
the National Geographic Society."

It makes me pretty happy that this is not a VC-backed startup.

~~~
elandrum
When someone recommended it to me last summer, I was hesitant to be yet
another content creator for yet another platform. Then I saw it was run by
science foundations! Signed up immediately. It’s been fun in Colorado to learn
plants that I see on hikes.

~~~
ImaCake
The data is uploaded to gbif[0]. Where you can download it for free!

0\.
[https://www.gbif.org/dataset/50c9509d-22c7-4a22-a47d-8c48425...](https://www.gbif.org/dataset/50c9509d-22c7-4a22-a47d-8c48425ef4a7)

------
olivierlacan
Thanks for sharing this, I've been yearning for an app like this for months
maybe even years.

More impressive even is that iNaturalist is seemingly entirely open source:
[https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/developers](https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/developers)

The backend is Rails (4.2), the iNaturalist iOS app is native, the Seek app is
ReactNative. It's really neat stuff.

Their 2019 Year in Review post is fascinating and impressive as well:
[https://www.inaturalist.org/blog/29540-year-in-
review-2019](https://www.inaturalist.org/blog/29540-year-in-review-2019)

------
pryelluw
Today marks the last day I'll be the (paid) maintainer for a similar project
called Fieldscope.

Fieldscope is a similar project that came out of NatGeo. It is currently
operated by BSCS.

Fieldscope is now very old and is being rebuilt with modern tech. I did not
write the app itself, but kept it alive for 2 years.

Working on it opened up my eyes to all the wonderful world of citizen science.
Specially how many (really many) scientific datasets are available for open
use.

One of the datasets I enjoyed working with is one that centers around the
Chesapeake Bay project. It contains flora observations taken by citizen
volunteers. It's very interesting to learn about the history of the Chesapeake
Bay and to be able to map how it has changed over time.

I exhort those intersted in open source and science to look into tackling
problems in this space. Observing and recording nature is not a solved
problem. Better software will certainly help get there. I'm on the process of
doing so myself. Makes no sense to waste all this experience without benefit
open source and science.

If you are part of a scientific project please reach out to me. Email in
profile.

~~~
kcindric
I'm a developer with a masters degree in biology. I would love to contribute
to iNaturalist but Rails seems cumbersome from my POV, but in the end I think
I'll try.

Any other open source projects looking for help?

~~~
pryelluw
I would rephrase your approach based on what technologies you know and want to
work with.

Instead of looking for project who need help, why not:

I know $technology, which projects are looking for help?

It's then a matter of a couple of web searching sessions. :)

BTE, almost all scientific projects are looking for help. It's a matter of
fit.

~~~
kcindric
You're right, I'm just hyped for things like iNaturalist because handling
citizen science data was part of my job when I worked as a biologist and put
my two fielda of interest together sounds great.

My main stack now are C# and JS (Vue). Well, better start searching.

~~~
pryelluw
I do know for a fact that front end work is a big need. Solid FE work that
takes a11y seriously will provide endless opportunities.

Best of luck!

------
bananamerica
More than 2000 observations in my Brazilian hometown[1]. Not bad!

Kinda feels like a real-life Pokemon — without the capturing and slaving part.

I haven't seen any monkeys and we have quite a few. I'll try adding some!

[1]
[https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=20640](https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=20640)

------
ImaCake
I can't recommend iNaturalist enough. You can learn about the world around you
by uploading sightings of any plants and animals you see all while
contributing to a rich dataset for scientific research. I regularly upload
birds and occasionally other fauna from where I live and work.

------
hotsauceror
I'm a huge fan of Seek. It's not perfect, sometimes it can be tricky to get
just the right combination of zoom + lighting + angles to get a good match,
but I've been impressed at what a good job it does. It's great to take on
local hikes with kids.

------
anonsivalley652
Note: I tried reading the article:

    
    
        Wired.com
        Sorry, something has gone wrong.
    
        Please try again soon.
    

Speaking of learning about nature, _Crime Pays But Botany Doesn 't_ YT
channel.

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3CBOpT2-NRvoc2ecFMDCsA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3CBOpT2-NRvoc2ecFMDCsA)

It sounds like this app will be different and useful, which is good.

~~~
rrix2
that youtube channel is really great!

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Yes, he is awesome, so engaging. I'm in the UK, I would really like a similar
channel localised to the UK if anyone has suggestions?

~~~
Nux
No idea, also curious. If you like this kind of stuff you might be interested
in
[https://candidegardening.com/GB/about](https://candidegardening.com/GB/about)
if you haven't joined already. Should be quite uk centric.

------
joan_kode
iNat has a lot of unique content too - not just "in your backyard" type of
stuff. Just a couple of days ago, a user posted a picture of what appears to
be a new species of Spiny Orbweaver spiders:

[https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/39210068](https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/39210068)

~~~
pvaldes
Gastheracantha cancriformis is not a rare species

Or G. sauteri, that looks more probable.

~~~
joan_kode
I'm not sure if you're implying this is not a new species (which would be
possible, of course) - but it does not look like either of those you
mentioned. Not to appeal to authority, but the two members who initially
called out the uniqueness of that spider have collectively identified
thousands of _Gastheracantha_ observations specifically, and never previously
claimed that any of those were new species so far as I'm aware.

~~~
pvaldes
We'll never know, and this is exactly the problem with this kind of web pages.
This is pseudotaxonomy.

------
ravenstine
Uses Rails and Node.js! It's nice to see an example of a great project that
uses Boring Software™ in 2020.

~~~
xipho
That's a funny way of stating it's a great example of 2(?) people coding a
sustainable service to hundreds of thousands of others.

~~~
ravenstine
The nature of HN creates an illusion that everyone is(or should be) using the
cutting edge tool, framework, or paradigm du jour. Rails and Node.js are
fairly old in tech years at this point, especially the former, yet iNaturalist
is a demonstration that they are both very capable and worth using in 2020. I
don't know how I got misinterpreted. There have been multiple articles posted
here in the past referring to such things as "Boring Software". My comment was
intended as a compliment in every way.

------
Pamar
For plants _only_ I also use Picture This app.

[https://apps.apple.com/us/app/picturethis-plant-
identifier/i...](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/picturethis-plant-
identifier/id1252497129)

~~~
jkaljundi
The one I love is Plantsnap:
[https://www.plantsnap.com/](https://www.plantsnap.com/)

------
jefft255
I submitted my first observation one month ago. Love this stuff, especially
given that I collected more than 1000 observations of trees during my masters;
I'm now slowly publishing the interesting ones.

------
calibas
I love iNaturalist, I get to learn more about the local plants and animals,
and contribute to scientific projects at the same time. Their AI works
remarkably well at identification most of the time.

~~~
andrewharvey
Can you say more about the AI identification? I use iNat frequently and have
never seen it suggest or recommend an ID from my photos.

~~~
sohkamyung
Did you click / tap in the suggest ID box (web / mobile app) and then wait?
Suggestions usually pop-up.

See these iNat Video Tutorials for examples [1]

[1]
[https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/video+tutorials](https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/video+tutorials)

~~~
andrewharvey
Oh I see there is a completely different interface when uploading photos
directly vs importing from Flickr. Since I import all photos from my Flickr to
maintain the metadata link it must be using an older less flashy form.

Didn't even know the one in the video existed until now.

~~~
sohkamyung
Yes, I usually upload my images directly into iNaturalist, so it usually
suggests an ID for me when I put an ID on each observation.

I found an iNat page on uploading observations from Flickr [1] which is
probably what you used. It seems to say you can add an ID for each upload but
it doesn't say if the AI will help you with the ID, like with the direct
uploading to iNat.

[1]
[https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/flickr_upload](https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/flickr_upload)

------
adiyatmubarak
Reminds me my old pet project. I created android apps[1] for local
herpetologist in Indonesia using iNaturalist API. So, people can report every
encounter of herpetofauna around them and saved as gallery for their
portfolio.

[1]
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=id.web.adiyatm...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=id.web.adiyatmubarak.herpetkita&hl=in)

------
dang
Related from a couple months ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21870138](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21870138)

A bit from 2017:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14831794](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14831794)

------
Taniwha
My grandmother was a member of the local "Naturalist's Field Club" a bunch of
mostly little old ladies who would go on bus trips to look at flowers in the
countryside - they were continually being confused with the Naturists which
resulted in a bunch of embarrassed tittering

------
shock
I wish something like this existed for organisms you see under the microscope
(fungi, bacteria, viruses).

~~~
contingencies
I don't see any limitations... try uploading!

~~~
pvaldes
There are lots of limitations in fact with the idea of identifying a bacteria
or a microbe with a microscope.

~~~
contingencies
Sure, same with images of anything though. There's always metadata. Some
categories have extra properties, so you could handle this by documenting the
stain in use, magnification, density count, spatial affinity, sample type,
etc.

~~~
pvaldes
I do something similar just for fun, since many years. In my experience lots
of just will not care about taking the steps necessary or provide the extra
info, they just want easy answers from the blurriest phone photo available.
Taxonomy is not simple. Not even for trained people.

Doing this with bacteria and virus opens the door to a world of legal problems
and medicine trouble. I would advice against.

~~~
contingencies
True, you could disable the ML identification bit. But the value of a
browseable taxonomy with social identification features remains.

------
nybsop
One issue that I've noticed with their system is that usually when a person
posts an image, they take a random guess at the ID, and then all their friends
will dog-pile on agreeing with it. There are so many misidentifications on
there and not enough experts to correct it.

~~~
sohkamyung
I believe some of the 'random' guesses is actually the background AI system
suggesting an identification.

Depending on the organism, it mostly works until it doesn't. :-) For example,
in my region (Singapore), it's suggestions for mammals, birds and butterflies
is mostly correct at Genus, Order or Family level.

I do agree that some identifications could be better and try to help by
putting comments when I see something wrong (e.g., "this species is not native
to the region"). But even putting in the wrong ID is better than not putting
an ID and leaving a sighting as "Unknown". There is a huge pile of unknown
identifications that nobody looks at because the experts usually filter by the
organisms they know about.

Here is an old (2016) article about the AI recognition system being used by
iNaturalist [1].

[1]
[https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/computer_vision_demo](https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/computer_vision_demo)

------
eu
I really like their Seek app when finding myself in the woods or in a
botanical garden.

------
rexreed
Is this the new definition of social network these days? Back in the 80s or
90s these would have been affinity groups, forums, or even just a BBS if it
was dialup centric.

------
burmer
I love it! I can identify a number of native plants, but I use it for hikes
when I spot something that looks weird. I found native orchids at my work!

------
overcast
Sweet, something useful and educational. The interface reminds me a lot of the
now defunct foodspotting.

------
tomrod
I have used this and love it!

------
l33t_d0nut
iNaturalist is a ton of fun!

------
chrisweekly
Given "naturalist" is sometimes a moniker for a nudist, it's hard not to
wonder about precisely what these people are helping each other learn.

Edit: Doh! I was indeed thinking of "naturist". (Also, glad I don't care about
the downvotes; intended mild joke, clearly whiffed on that too.)

~~~
maffydub
I think that a "naturist" is a nudist - a "naturalist" (as used here) is
someone interested in nature.

Obviously, it's possible to be both!

