I figured out how to do this, but when I signed in and went back to submit one, the option to add one disappeared. Do I need to be a professional or meet some requirements to submit common names?

I see the filter for "Introduced" in the explore, but I was wondering what was native to the area around me and can't seem to figure out how to do it (short of making a list of all the introduced and a list of everything...)

Ignore my crappy photo quality but I didn’t want to get too close to her and frighten her.

This app has definitely opened my eyes to what’s out there to be explored without leaving much of your daily comforts of life. I love documenting findings and learning about different plants and species

So I have a bunch of cool recordings on my Merlin app and I was wondering how to import the audio in my phone to iNat. Also is it possible to do it on the iPhone version of the app?

I made an observation that was marked as captive/cultivated and now the observation is "casual." The observation is of a deer that was walking through my yard. Is that considered captive? I have 25 observations from my yard so far, should I be marking them all captive?

The app's best suggestion and visually similar is Thornless crown of thorns but it looks really weird having 2 new flowers growing directly from the middle of the base flower

For context, I wanted to explore an undeveloped part of a neighborhood park which isn’t very popular as it’s small and the neighborhood is kind of pain to exit from. The bigger parks get all the visitors as they are both easier to get to, have facilities, and have maintained trails. If you hike at the right time, you’ll find people picking plants and mushrooms along the trail which is against the rules but there’s no one to do anything about it.

While I was exploring this hidden park, I found an interesting bush with an odd flower that wasn’t like any others I’ve found hiking at any of the local parks. I’m not a botanist. All I saw was an odd looking flower with parts (stamens?) that looked like bow ties arranged in a circle and tiny flowers in a circle around them.

Got home, put it on iNat with location open, and also sent the photos to a relative that I believed had the same flowers. She said it was a native plant that was a popular for its ability to grow indoors or outside. Apparently it was also rare to find in the wild. Guessing you’ve already predicted where this is going.

Nobody could tell what species it was, only the genus despite pictures of the flowers, leaves, and fruits. A week later I went to find the plant and see if I could find any other features that might help narrow it down. That is… if it wasn’t completely torn out of the ground and taken.

Like the whole BUSH was taken. Not just a seed or something. The whole plant. Double checked the location, which I had marked on my phone while exploring, and it was definitely the spot. Even had a couple leaves from the plant on the ground. Either an animal decided to eat the whole plant in the last couple days or one of the pickers saw the observation on iNat.

I feel partially responsible for this as it was definitely growing peacefully for some time and was a decent size. There were a few cluster of seeds so this spot might had been a cool place to watch these flowers grow in the wild. My observations will definitely be obscured or private from now on.

Considered other possibilities like an animal but there aren’t any big animals due to the area being developed around the park plus the bush was easily five feet tall. I don’t know of any squirrels devouring a five foot bush down to the roots.

I have 2000+ observations over the last 2-3 years so I’m not new to iNaturalist. It’s been incredibly helpful to me personally and professionally. But I’ve noticed in the last couple months that it’s not identifying as well as it used to. So often it fails to make a solid recommendation and instead gives me the “We’re not confident but here’s some things that are visually similar or expected in the area”. Sometimes that has the correct one but more often they’re all obviously incorrect.

I identify primarily plants and I know what is important—both sides of the leaf, buds, flowers if present, whole plant, in focus, etc. This has always worked for me, but now it seems like it doesn’t. What’s up? Anyone else having this issue? Did they tweak the algorithm? I’m finding it a less useful tool and that’s disappointing to say the least. Often I’m leaving things at Dicot or Monocot.

I have worked lots of field jobs that let me see some cool places and cool species. Love insects and plants so most of my observations are those, but I've got some other groups sprinkled in for variety

An error message keeps appearing saying that the image type I'm trying to upload isn't supported, however they're just .jpg pictures that I could upload until yesterday with no problems.

I’ve only been on iNaturalist for about a month, and I’ve been obsessed the whole time. I got into birding (all nature-watching really, but birds are the most common/accessible) and I’m constantly posting observations. I go out multiple times a week taking photos, and I’ve rapidly become the main poster in my neighborhood. Almost all the blue pins on the map are mine.

It’s got me thinking, maybe I post too much? Maybe I’m a little toooo enthusiastic about common animal sightings. I think I’ll tone it down from now on, as best as I can. I might even go back and delete low-quality observations of common species, just to thin it out a bit.

Does anyone relate to this? Any thoughts? What is considered good posting etiquette for iNaturalist?

Does anyone know what grid / cell size iNaturalist uses on maps of observations? In case I'm not clear. The red squares that are generated for observations.

https://preview.redd.it/e7bj92ktwpud1.png?width=312&format=png&auto=webp&s=2e4046a2df6cf67ec47fd2c4a1e41800da7059b5

I’m in Canada and I’m starting my yearly donations and I want to give to iNat this year. Just wondering if iNat issues charitable tax receipts. Does anyone know?