FAQs and Resources

Want to learn how to use all the amazing features available on iNaturalist desktop? From community functions, acessing forums and guides, to creating your own iNaturalist project, this is a great resource for intermediate to advanced iNaturalist uders. Watch this youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAYRlSTlrAw 

Watch this youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXm3poNkn6Y 

The City Nature Challenge always occurs following Earth day (April 22). However, the exact dates change each year slightly, so make sure to check current dates for that year!

All observations made starting on the first day at 12:00 AM YOUR LOCAL TIME and up until the last day at 11:59 PM YOUR LOCAL TIME will count for the City Nature Challenge. 

No, only observations made during April 24 – April 27 will count for the 2026 City Nature Challenge. 

Review this chart comparing the available features between iNat Classic and the new iNaturalist app: https://help.inaturalist.org/en/support/solutions/articles/151000216149-what-s-the-difference-between-inaturalist-and-inaturalist-classic- 

*Note that iNat classic will not receive any more updates and will eventually phase out, so it is recommended to only use the new iNat app for the City Nature Challenge 

Seek by iNaturalist is a great way to engage children and families in nature exploration because it does not automatically collect personally identifiable information about users. In order to use Seek to make observations for the City Nature Challenge, you must login to Seek using your iNaturalist account information. After making an observation in Seek, click the "Send observation to iNaturalist button" to send it to your iNaturalist account!

Watch this youtube video to explore the difference between Seek and iNaturalist and when to choose one app over the other: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOYxjK70fJc 

To get an observation to “Research Grade” status: (1) it must have a photo, (2) it must have an accurate date and location, (3) it cannot be a captive or cultivated organism, and (4) over 2/3rds of the people adding IDs to it have to agree about what species it is. It’s key to check back on your observations after you make them to see if anyone has added an identification or left a comment, possibly asking you to provide a bit more information about what you saw. Click here to learn more about Research Grade.

All verifiable observations (will count for the CNC) even those that are not Research Grade.

An identification confirms that you can confidently identify it yourself compared to any possible lookalikes. Please do not simply “Agree” with an ID that someone else has made without confirming that you understand how to identify that taxon. If you agree with the ID without actually knowing the taxon, it may reach Research Grade erroneously.

If you disagree with an identification, the best thing to do is to add an identification of your own. It’s helpful to provide a reason for disagreement in a comment. If you think you had the correct identification before the other person added theirs, then it’s useful to write a FRIENDLY comment explaining why you think your ID is correct.

In the same way that anyone can be an observer, anyone can help identify observations. In iNaturalist, go to your city’s project, click “Observations” and you’ll see an “Identify” button pop up just below it. Clicking this will take you to the iNaturalist Identify page and show you all of your city’s observations that still need to be identified. From this page, you can restrict what it shows you by taxon, which helps if you know how to ID certain groups. If you’re not an expert in any group, you can still help by identifying the “unknowns” – the observations with no IDs at all! Click the “Filters” button and then select the dashed-line leaf with a question mark in it:

This will show you all the observations that are currently listed as “unknown.” It’s really helpful to go through these and add high-level IDs like “plants” or “insects” or “birds” or “fungi” – whatever you know about the organism – so people who do know how to ID these groups down to species can find them! Here’s a short video about using the Identify page.

No matter what, please only add an ID of which you can be reasonably sure – it’s fine if you don’t know what something is, and it’s fine to only add a genus or family or even kingdom level ID.