An observation records an encounter with an individual organism at a particular time and location. This includes encounters with signs of organisms like tracks, nests, or things that just died. When you make an observation, you’ll record:
Your observations don’t need to include all of these parts, but they do in order to become research quality observations for science. Remember, you should make separate observations for each separate organism you encounter. If you observed something that is not wild, like a garden plant or a lion in the zoo, make sure to mark it as captive/cultivated to prevent it from becoming research quality.
How to post an observation to iNaturalist
There are a number of video tutorials available on the iNaturalist website to help you get you started using the app.
You can also see the infographics below on how to post an observation in the app on an iPhone or Android device or online through the iNaturalist website.
Additional video tutorials you can watch:
- Adding an observation on a mobile device
- Adding an observation via the web
- Duplicating an observation
- Adding a photo or sound to an observation
- Exploring observations with iNaturalist
How do identifications work in iNaturalist?
On iNaturalist, you can also contribute by adding identifications to yours and other user’s observations. iNaturalist uses artificial intelligence to help provide suggested identifications for observations (pics) you upload to the app (but this isn’t always fool-proof, so it’s important the community of users and experts check this).
Each identification helps confirm or improve the community's opinion on the species that the observation represents. These are then verified by experts and experienced players. All verified and research grade sightings go into a global database. This database includes links to the local Atlas of Living Australia.
Additional iNaturalist video tutorials you can watch on this topic: