Naturalist Community · iNaturalist

iNaturalist helps you identify the plants and animals around you while generating data for science and conservation. Connect with a community of millions of scientists and naturalists who can help you learn more about nature! Plus, by recording and sharing your observations, you'll be creating research-quality data for scientists working to better understand and protect nature.

iNaturalist is a US-based 501c3 nonprofit organization (tax ID 92-1296468).

Vision: iNaturalist's vision is to enable everyone to understand and sustain biodiversity by observing wildlife and sharing information about them.

Mission: iNaturalist's mission is to connect people with nature and advance biodiversity science and conservation.

What is iNaturalist?

iNaturalist is a lot of different things, but at its core, iNaturalist is an online social network where people share biodiversity information and help each other learn about nature.
It is also a crowdsourced species identification system and biogenetic recording tool. You can use it to record your own observations, get help with identifications, collaborate with others to collect such information for a common purpose, or access observations collected by iNaturalist users.

iNaturalist.org began as a final project for Ken-ichi Ueda, Nate Agrin, and Jessica Kline as part of their master's degree program at the School of Information at UC Berkeley in 2008. After graduation, Nate and Ken-ichi continued to work on the site, with some additional help from Sean McGregor. In 2011, Ken-ichi began working with Scott Loarie, when they formed iNaturalist, LLC, and began expanding the site through multiple collaborations. In 2014, iNaturalist became an initiative of the California Academy of Sciences, and in 2017 it was launched in conjunction with the National Geographic Society. In 2023, iNaturalist became an independent non-profit organization. Internationally, iNaturalist works with a variety of different organizations through the iNaturalist Network to provide localized experiences and greater impact.