Ever wondered about the names of the plants and animals in your neighborhood? A new app, Seek by iNaturalist, makes it easier than ever to learn about the natural world around you—and contribute to scientific research in the process. The free app leverages artificial intelligence to identify plants, animals, and fungi, transforming anyone into a citizen scientist.
What is iNaturalist and How Does it Use AI?
iNaturalist began as a master’s project at UC Berkeley in 2008, later evolving into a joint initiative between the California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society. Its mission is to connect people with nature and support conservation efforts by collecting crowdsourced data. Currently, it holds over 250 million observations documenting more than half a million species—and you can easily add to that number.
The app itself, Seek by iNaturalist, is completely free, supported by donor contributions. As a non-profit organization, iNaturalist makes all collected data openly available to scientists and conservationists worldwide (though users can opt out of sharing their data). At its core, Seek uses computer vision AI to analyze photos uploaded by users and match them against a vast database of previous observations.
Beyond the initial identification, AI is used to refine species recognition accuracy and display the most relevant photos. This helps users distinguish between similar species they might encounter in their backyard or local ecosystems. When you take a picture with the app, iNaturalist suggests a potential identification for plants, insects, fungi, or other organisms. While the AI makes the initial suggestion, a community of naturalists reviews and confirms or corrects these identifications, combining AI and human expertise. This combined approach makes it possible for even beginners to contribute to biodiversity documentation.
How to Use iNaturalist to Spot and Categorize Nature
Getting started with iNaturalist is simple:
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Download and Create an Account: Search for “Seek” in your app store and sign up using your email or a social media authenticator. You’ll need to grant the app access to your camera and location services to use its AI-powered computer vision and accurately detect species.
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Practice with the Camera: Before starting, familiarize yourself with the app’s camera function. Snap a few photos of various plants, animals, or fungi you find around you. Pay attention to background images, angles, and lighting – these factors influence the AI’s ability to accurately identify what you’re capturing.
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Identify Species: Once you’re comfortable, point the camera at the organism you want to identify. The AI will analyze the photo and provide a list of potential species matches, often presented as percentages reflecting the AI’s confidence level. You can also record GPS coordinates and add details about behavior, size, and other observations. You can customize privacy settings to indicate whether an observation is from a captive environment (like a potted plant) or a natural setting.
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Confirm and Share (Optional): If you choose, you can share your observation to the community for review by other users and experts. Once confirmed, your observation becomes valuable scientific data.
Should You Use iNaturalist?
Think of iNaturalist as Instagram for nature enthusiasts. It’s a platform where volunteers assist scientists in their discoveries. The app’s greatest strength lies in its ability to connect people with nature and advance scientific understanding.
However, like any technology, iNaturalist has limitations. While it operates globally with 3.7 million users, the accuracy of species identification depends on having active expert communities in your region. Rural or less-populated areas may experience slower confirmation times.
The topic of AI ethics also warrants consideration. The iNaturalist team emphasizes the importance of location data for accurate species identification, particularly for wild organisms. Yet, users can choose to obscure precise locations to protect their privacy and can utilize the AI identification feature without creating an account or posting publicly. The organization regularly updates its Privacy Policy to support community well-being and maintain an open biodiversity dataset.
Overall, Seek by iNaturalist provides an excellent opportunity to learn about the natural world and contribute to our understanding of ecosystems—a “virtuous cycle of collective effort and improvement, built on community trust and benefit in service of helping people connect with nature and biodiversity worldwide.”
