iNaturalist Quickstart Guide
iNaturalist is a naturalist community application where photos of any wild living thing can be identified and shared to the naturalist community. Once there is agreement between naturalists the species of an observation, the data can then be used by scientists all around the world. www.inaturalist.org
Account Set Up
- Download the free app to your phone (find it in the Google Play store for Android or the App Store for iPhone). The app symbol is a green bird in flight, shown below.
2.If you want to share creature/plant observations with the naturalist community and you are over the age of 13, set up an account by adding your email, account name, Password, and agree to the terms and conditions for using the application. How to Sign Up for an iNaturalist Account : iNaturalist Help (freshdesk.com)
Additional phone set up for photo location, date and time
The advantage of this additional phone set up will allow iNaturalist to use the photo information and fill in these fields in the observation automatically.
For Android: In Smart Phone Settings, find the ‘Location’ setting and turn on. Click on the camera icon, locate the Camera settings icon and click. Find the ‘Location Tags’ setting and turn on. When a photo is taken, this will tag the photo with the GPS location, date and time stamp which will then be automatically attached to the observation when uploaded to iNaturalist.
For Apple: Open your phone or tablet device’s Settings, Tap on Privacy, check that your Location Services (GPS) is enabled. Under the list of apps that use GPS location, select camera and then “While Using the App”. When a photo is taken, this will tag the photo with the GPS location, date and time stamp which will then be automatically attached to the observation when uploaded to iNaturalist.
If you do not want your device (Android or Apple) to geotag every photo that you take, make sure to go in and turn the geotagging function off after using it for iNaturalist observations
Step-by-step instructions for creating an observation can be found at:
How to Make an Observation : iNaturalist Help (freshdesk.com)
There are some really great video tutorials that can be found here:
Explore iNaturalist Help website