Also, if you put your image(s) under a compatible license (CC BY-SA or less restrictive), we on Wikipedia also pull from iNaturalist for images to add to Wikimedia Commons. It helps a surprising amount.
Seek is also a decent alternative if you want quick results with minimal steps. It’s a more casual experience. You basically scan your specimen with Seek on live video and it identifies it in real-time. You miss out on the iNaturalist community help, but you can link Seek to your iNaturalist account to share observations.
I’m still looking for a good app to identify insects (mostly in Europe). Is iNaturalist the best?
It is.
Also, if you put your image(s) under a compatible license (CC BY-SA or less restrictive), we on Wikipedia also pull from iNaturalist for images to add to Wikimedia Commons. It helps a surprising amount.
Ah wow, that’s great! I’ll have a look.
That sounds very promising. Thanks for the info.
Seek is also a decent alternative if you want quick results with minimal steps. It’s a more casual experience. You basically scan your specimen with Seek on live video and it identifies it in real-time. You miss out on the iNaturalist community help, but you can link Seek to your iNaturalist account to share observations.
I’ll try iNaturalist first but if that doesn’t work for my use case I’ll have a look at Seek. Thank you.
Yes.
Cool, thanks for bringing it to my attention.
There was a recent drama around it which had to do with generative AI they wanted to use in the app.
https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/06/19/google-bribes-inaturalist-to-use-generative-ai-volunteers-quit-in-outrage/
I use obsidentify
I found obsidentify more reliable than inaturalist/seek
I just yell “hey anyone know what this is” and usually someone yells back