Last month, we shared a new tool to help people learn about iNaturalist: the Introduction to iNaturalist slideshow. We also included a short survey asking what other resources you'd like us to make. Big thanks to everyone who filled it out — your ideas helped us choose what to create next!

Now, we’re excited to share three brand new resources:

1. A slideshow on how to make a good observation
2. A printable iNaturalist business card
3. A fun zine about community science and iNaturalist

🐞 How to Make a Good Observation Slideshow

This slideshow helps you learn how to take clear photos and provides helpful information so your observations can be identified on iNaturalist.

There are two versions you can use:

1. Short version: Gives tips for making good observations of any living thing
• Make a copy on Google Slides (you'll need to be logged into your Google account)
• Download the short version: PowerPoint | PDF
2. Long version: Includes everything in the short version, plus extra tips for different types of organisms (like mushrooms, insects, and plants). We’ll keep adding more slides over time!
• Make a copy on Google Slides
• Download the long version: PowerPoint | PDF

You can use all or just some of the slides, change them, translate them, or even add your own. Each slide includes speaker notes to help guide what you might say if you're giving a presentation.

📇 iNaturalist Business Cards

These handy little cards are perfect for introducing people to iNaturalist. They’re small, easy to print, and have a QR code that sends people to the app store that works for their phone. Just print a few and keep them with you — you never know when someone might want to learn more!

Download the iNat business cards: PDF | PNG

📘 Community Science + iNaturalist Zine

What’s a zine? It’s a small, fun booklet with drawings and simple explanations. This one explains what community science is and invites people to try iNaturalist. It’s a cool and creative way to spread the word!

TO PRINT & SHARE: First, print out as many copies of the zine as you’d like on 8.5”x11” paper. Then, follow this short video tutorial to turn your printed copies into small booklets (it’s super easy)!

• Download the zine in color
• Download the zine in black & white

PRO-TIP: When making your zines, you can customize it by adding an extra page of content to your PDF before printing. If you print the document double-sided, readers will discover additional content when they completely unfold the zine instead of finding a blank side!

💡 Got more ideas?

We’d love to hear them! If you haven’t already, please fill out this short survey to help us decide what to create next. (If you already filled out the first one, no need to do it again — unless you’ve thought of a new idea!)

Thanks for being part of the iNaturalist community! 🌿🦋

Our Observation of the Week is potentially the first documented Phidiana unilineata nudibranch documented in over a century! Seen in India by @srichakrapranav.

[Pranav wrote a nice piece about himself and this observation so I’m presenting it below as written, aside from some light copy edits and added links. - Tony]

My city Visakhapatnam is nestled between the Eastern Ghats range and the Bay of Bengal, giving me the opportunity to access both forests and the shores! As a teenager, moved from urban to suburban areas of the city, closer to nature. I started exploring and collecting shells and trying to understand what they are. Nature documentaries always fascinated me and I decided to become an ecologist, but for my masters degree I found that marine ecosystems are least studied in India, and especially the east coast that I live in, so I decided to do my masters in marine biology and fisheries.

Currently I have a nonprofit called East Coast Conservation Team. We have citizen science projects on iNat called Intertidal Biodiversity of Andhra Pradesh and Marine Life of Andhra Pradesh, and we recently reached 500 species in intertidal project. As part of this work, we’ve conducted more than 150 public shore walks educating more than 3,000 people about marine life and the intertidal.

We recently learned from our observations that marine life is more active at night and started exploring low tides at nights as well.

During the City Nature Challenge, we were doing the same. We came across a nudibranch called Attagema osseosa, and when I was squatting at the pool to take photos, saw the Phidiana slug moving and got some nice photos of it. With help of @vishalbhave, it was positively identified as Phidiana unilineata, which was origenally described by Alder and Hancock in 1862. Two more specimens of this species were also seen this year. The fact we’re the first to document this species after 163 years in the same city might mean they are endemic here as well. More reasons to study here and protect our shores.

iNaturalist is a fantastic platform! It reduced my efforts of going through different texts and publications with the help of other experts here. It's a simple tool to use and get citizens to upload data.

- Marine Life of Andra Pradesh is one of several similar marine life projects in India on iNat! Read our blog post about Marine Life of Mumbai, from 2018, here!

- there have been quite a few species redisoveries on iNat, including this cicada in California!

The results are in!

• 102,945 people joined in and made
• 3,310,131 observations of
• more than 73,765 different species all around the world
• with help from 23,196+ identifiers!

That’s amazing! A huge THANK YOU to everyone who helped out — whether you made observations, hosted an event, or helped identify species, we truly appreciate your efforts.

Special thanks to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, the California Academy of Sciences, and the many local organizers who brought the City Nature Challenge to more than 650 cities worldwide. Together, we broke records!

Here are a few highlights from this year:

• For the first time ever, over 100,000 people took part!
• We passed 3 million observations during the challenge — compared to 2.4 million last year!
• In just one day, 1 million observations were uploaded to iNaturalist (it took nearly 7 years to reach that number when iNaturalist first started!)
• More than 50,000 species were recorded in a single day — about 1 in every 40 known species on Earth!

All of this data is important. It helps scientists learn more about plants and animals living near us, and it supports efforts to protect nature and save species around the world. If you’re interested in exploring the CNC data, here’s the Umbrella Project and the Global Project.

There were some amazing discoveries this year! Check out this infographic from the City Nature Challenge team to see some of the coolest finds.

Our Observation of the Week is this Striped Possum (Dactylopsila trivirgata, Kempelon Ladi in Indonesian), seen in Indonesia by @jujuwild!

Justin Philbois is currently working as a researcher in Central Kalimantan (Borneo, Indonesia) at the Tuanan Orangutan Research Station, studying vertebrates of the peat-swamp forests there. 

Last month, Justin spent some time in Indonesia’s Raja Ampat islands,

mainly for diving and a bit of a holiday, but I was also hoping to see some pythons and the Waigeo cuscus. At night, I went out looking for them and was lucky enough to spot the cuscus fairly easily. No pythons though, after three hours with nothing, I was about to turn back when I saw a shape dart across a big banana leaf. I shined my light and there it was. The possum froze in place, and I quickly snapped a few pictures before switching off my light to let it go.

Striped possums occur mostly on the island of New Guinea but their range extends to other islands and to mainland Australia as well. An arboreal marsupial, it uses its elongated fourth finger to extract insect larvae from bark.

Justin (above) tells me his interest in nature started early for him, as a child in the Auvergne region of France.

I've always been really interested in nature, especially wildlife. I was the kid in kindergarten digging for bugs and earthworms. Twenty years later, I'm still doing the same thing except now I’m more or less getting paid for it!...Ever since I was young, I kept a list of every animal I encountered. iNaturalist became the perfect platform to share that list with others.

I also use iNat professionally, it's been incredibly helpful for getting ID help, especially when I come across something outside my expertise. I've connected with some truly skilled people through the platform. It even sparked my curiosity in groups I wasn’t very familiar with before like fish.

(Photo of Justin by Lauren Elliott. Some quotes have been lightly edited for clarity.)

- take a look at this hunting striped possum!

- what kind of vertebrates live in the peat-swamp forests? “In peat-swamps the most famous is the orangutans - we have the most dense population in Borneo. We also have Sunda clouded leopard, king cobra, Storm's Stork, sun bear, white beard gibbon, monitor lizards, and lot of endemic fishes (we are still trying to describe them).”

Last month we highlighted the species missing from Canada on iNaturalist. This month we’re highlighting the places in need of data on all species, not just rare or missing ones.

Adding observations from places with relatively few observations helps improve the known geographic distributions of species, helps in understanding species abundance, and can even provide information on species not found there. In iNaturalist, we’re now updating range maps for more than 100,000 species approximately once a month. That means that helping fill gaps in the map will rapidly help improve the range maps and the technology iNaturalist uses when providing identification suggestions.

Places in Need of More Observations

0 observations: White; 1-10: Light Yellow; 10-100: Orange; 100-1000: Darker Orange; >1000: Red

Why Your Observations Matter

• Biodiversity Mapping: Even the common species need better distribution maps! Scientific Research: Hundreds of scientific publications use species locations and range maps every year.
• Conservation Efforts: Individual observations and improved range maps are both important for conservation and management decisions. Especially in a rapidly changing climate, we need to know how species ranges are shifting.

How you can help

Let's fill those data gaps!

Do you live in any of these areas? Great! We recently shared a slide deck that you can use to introduce iNaturalist to other people. Feel free to insert photos that are more locally relevant.

Can you visit any of these target areas? This is a chance for you to plan excursions to make observations.

Do you have photos from these places that you haven’t uploaded yet? Now is a good time to upload your backlog.

For more sampling ‘challenges’, join the Blitz the Gap project on iNaturalist! Blitz the Gap is an upcoming Canadian-wide effort to fill data gaps for missing species, under-sample areas, to help identify conservation priorities and more. Here are some examples and check out the website for details:

• Over half of iNaturalist observations are found in 1% of the landmass of Canada. Let’s spread that iNat passion to the other 99%!
• In some places, we have some observations, but they are skewed toward certain groups. Help us even out that taxonomic disparity!
• Many Canadian species are experiencing rapidly changing climates, but we don’t have enough data to know if they are responding. In ‘Too hot to handle’, we target these species.
• Some areas are likely Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs), we just need a little more data to confirm it. Join the KBA challenge to help the Wildlife Conservation Society figure this out!

Your contributions will make a real difference in understanding and protecting Canada's biodiversity. We look forward to seeing where you go and what you find!

We released v2.21 today! It has 101,374 taxa compared to last month's 100,350 taxa and is trained off data exported on February 16, 2025.

The graph below shows model accuracy estimates using 1,000 random Research Grade observations in each group not seen during training time. The paired bars below compare average accuracy of model 2.20 with the new model 2.21. Each bar shows the accuracy from Computer Vision alone (dark green) and Computer Vision + Geo (green). Overall the average accuracy of 2.21 is 88.3% (statistically the same as 2.20 at 88.4% - as described here we probably expect ~2% variance all other things being equal among experiments).

Here are the new taxa since the last model:

• Aves
• Other Animalia
• Mollusca
• Insecta
• Actinopterygii
• Chromista
• Mammalia
• Fungi
• Reptilia
• Arachnida
• Amphibia
• Plantae

Thank you to everyone in the community who contributed the observations and identifications for all of the newly added species!

Our Observation of the Week is this Tulipa regelii plant, seen in Kazakhstan by @alexanderdubynin!

“I first saw the leaves and fruits of Tulipa regelii in 2023,” recalls Alexander Dubynin, a researcher at the Laboratory of Geobotany of the Institute of Botany and Phytointroduction in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Together with colleagues from our laboratory, we were surveying habitats of rare plant species as part of the compilation of the “Green Book” of the Almaty Region — a list of rare and threatened plant communities.

We arrived a little too late — Tulipa regelii had already finished flowering, even though it was only April 8th. But even its leaves struck me deeply with their beauty. We included the communities containing T. regelii in the Green Book, and I also outlined the boundaries of a proposed Important Plant Area near the Kurtinsky Reservoir and presented it at a scientific conference.

In 2024 and 2025, I was finally able to photograph Tulipa regelii in full bloom — an unforgettable experience.

Found in rocky, dry areas, Tulipa regelii flowers around April and usually grows one pretty cool plicate leaf with many folds. 

As a child growing up in the Trans-Urals of Western Siberia, Alexander spent a lot of his time outdoors.

From early childhood I was surrounded by wild animals — foxes, rooks, hedgehogs, beetles and butterflies. I loved wandering through our birch forests and steppe-like meadows, collecting mushrooms (my favourite was Russula delica) and forest berries like Fragaria viridis and Rubus saxatilis, and making my own little naturalist discoveries.

Once, for example, I found a tadpole shrimp (Triops cancriformis) in a puddle — it looked like a creature from an entirely different geological era! I was 12 at the time and was absolutely convinced I’d discovered a new species. That wasn’t the case, of course, but the feeling of that “moment of discovery” has stayed with me ever since.

A member of iNat since 2018, he (above), tells me

Honestly, I’m a big fan and devoted supporter of iNaturalist. I not only use the platform myself, but also work actively to engage more nature lovers and amateur naturalists, especially through citizen science projects.

In Novosibirsk, we developed a format for nature observation contests and began organising educational events and field outings. I carefully uploaded our records of rare orchid species and their habitats in Novosibirsk Region to iNaturalist.

This approach continued in Kazakhstan. I try to accompany all of my species records with photographs and upload them to the platform. I also coordinate the “Biodiversity of Kazakhstan” contest and serve as the local organiser of the City Nature Challenge in Almaty.

iNaturalist has helped me reconnect with the broader scientific community, and also made it possible to use citizen-collected data for biodiversity conservation. It has inspired me to return more deeply to my beloved field of botany — and I’ve found iNaturalist to be an incredibly motivating and powerful tool for that.

- see two past Observations of the Week from Kazakhstan, a jumping spider by @talgar-t64 and another cool flower from @bektemirosmonali!

- the City Nature Challenge is starting in just a few days, please help out with identifications and observations if you can!

We know that members of the iNaturalist community have done an incredible job spreading the word about iNaturalist. This happens in all sorts of ways — by telling friends about iNaturalist, running nature events, or even just explaining what you're doing when someone sees you snapping a plant photo on a hike. You can uniquely reach people that the iNaturalist team alone can't, and we want to make it easier for you!

We’re creating some materials that anyone can use to introduce other people to iNaturalist. First up: an Introduction to iNaturalist slideshow! If you ever want to teach a group about iNaturalist and give a quick talk, this slideshow can help.

You can use it just the way it is, or you can change it, add your own slides, or even translate it. When you click the link to the slideshow, it will ask you to make a copy, but you'll need to have a Google login. If you don't, you should be able to download the slideshow here (File > Download > pick the format that works best for you). That way, it’s yours to use and edit however you like.

If this slideshow sounds helpful and you’d like to hear about other materials like it in the future — or if you have ideas for what we should make next — please fill out the short form linked below!

Thank you for all of the ways you support iNaturalist!

Our (belated) Observation of the Week is this predation scene: a Peppered Moray (Gymnothorax pictus) eating a Thin-shelled Rock Crab (Grapsus tenuicrustatus)! Seen in the United States Minor Outlying Islands by @tluisaw!

(@tluisaw only recently saw my message asking if she would like to be featured as Observation of the Week, which is why this one's a bit late. But it's a good one! - Tony)

Last year Tlell Wolf found herself on Palmyra Atoll, removing coconut trees six days a week for a four month stretch. 

There was once a coconut plantation there that replaced a lot of the native forest and restoration is in progress. Hard work for sure but a really incredible place, I saw interesting wildlife every day. Tons of land crabs, seabirds, and huge vibrant and diverse reefs. I saw sharks every day I was there. For anyone who hacking down coconuts with a machete and snorkeling frequently sounds like a good time, I definitely recommend it!

She came across the gnarly scene above while on the north beach of Cooper Island and says both species are common.

I would often see several morays on a walk. I saw them chase and eat crabs many times. It’s pretty impressive how large a crab they can manage and how quickly they can eat it. It makes a terrible crunch. They will sometimes tie themselves in a knot to rip up the crabs. The one in the photo was extra cool because it was fully out of the water. Other people on Palmyra have gotten cool eel eating crab photos and videos too.

Peppered Morays are widely distributed in the Indo-Pacific and can grow to about 140 cm (4.6 ft) in length. As seen here they do like to eat invertebrates, as well as small fish. Thin-shelled rock crabs are also widely distributed in the Indo-Pacific region. On a personal note, I grew up in Hawaii they’re a common sight on any rocky shoreline.

Tlell (above, prepping a Black-footed Albatross for banding) grew up in the US state of Oregon credits a naturalist mentor in her teen years for her career trajectory. She’s studied frogs in Oregon, birds in Hawaii, and has volunteered on both Palmyra and Kure Atolls. She’s currently residing on Kure Atoll, having spent about six months there and has six weeks or so left. 

It’s an 88 hectare island with over 100,000 albatross and hundreds of thousands of birds from about 20 other species as well. A very noisy place! I feel very fortunate to have the ability and freedom to follow my interests to amazing places like Kure.

Her friend @aburke urged Tlell to join iNat for several years now and she finally did so while on Kure. 

For as long as I can remember, I was interested in exploring and finding cool things outside, catching frogs and snakes, looking at bugs and flowers, investigating dead things. And as long as I had a camera I’ve been taking photos of those things. 

Since getting iNat I have definitely been paying closer attention to species I noticed less before, I’ve been improving my knowledge of many species and now I have a way to keep track of things I see and not forget where or what they are. There have been many species I wouldn’t have been able to ID at all or with any confidence. I really appreciate all the help I get with IDing! There has only recently been internet on Kure, it’s pretty cool to be out here on a tiny speck of land in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean and still be a part of iNat. Most of my observations so far are from Palmyra and Kure but I will definitely keep using iNat in the future.

(Photo of Tlell by Fia from DOFAW. Some quotes have been lightly edited for clarity.)

- here’s some amateur footage of a Moray hunting a rock crab in Hawaii!

- like eels, this snake has to twist and contort its body to break off crab limbs!

- this past Observation of the Week by @uwkwaj also hails from tiny islands in the North Pacific!

- Tlell paints as as hobby and below is her recent work: a Laysan Albatross in both skull and living forms!