I just did a quick check and there are quite a large number of species with 100+ sound observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=97394&sounds&subview=map&view=species . Are there plans to do AI identification of them like we do for photos?

Not currently, but it’s something we’ve discussed. Definitely something we’d like to do.

I’m curious whether it would involve the development of a new tool specific to iNaturalist, or – not an exclusive “or”, I suppose – incorporation of some of the existing tools that can identify audio. people seem to rely very much on Merlin for bird sound identification, for example, though I’m not …

Merlin uses basically the same technology for both sound and image recognition because it converts the sounds into sonograms. https://www.mammalwatching.com/resources/mammal-vocalisations-audio-library/ is keeping track of the observations in iNat for mammals that include sound recordings.

Having AI sound recognition for non-birds would be tremendous. There are some resources for mammals cropping up, but it’s still scarce. The problem with sounds is that it’s impossible to look quickly at a lot of them and build some intuition, because the sound is extended in time, so having a comput…

I agree. Using Merlin, I’ve often tried to record a calling chipmunk thinking it was a bird.

Seeing a sonogram above the recording would be a very interesting and helpful feature here on iNat, don’t you think? I usually add sonograms manually after making screenshots of a software… But it would be also nice to see sonograms on other observations… Speaking of sonograms - as far as cicadas …

[image] greek_cicada_project: Seeing a sonogram above the recording would be a very interesting and helpful feature here on iNat, don’t you think? see https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/automatically-add-a-spectrogram-view-to-observations-with-sounds/3579

All we need is a spectrogram image, like Birdnet or Merlin produces, and a way to categorize them so they don’t muddy the waters of images used for visual ID. Should be a modest development scope.

[image] taitsougstad: Should be a modest development scope. said the person who doesn’t have to do the work…

AI sound identification?

General

pisum June 20, 2023, 11:11am 8

see https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/automatically-add-a-spectrogram-view-to-observations-with-sounds/3579

Topic		Replies	Views
Is it possible to get IDs just of sounds (no photos)? General	18	7164	December 3, 2022
Identify animal or insect sound General question	10	35397	September 3, 2025
Recognize sounds General	4	631	December 11, 2022
Importing Merlin IDs to iNaturalist General	15	3807	November 11, 2022
Screenshot from a bird identification app with no actual spectrogram General	11	424	May 2, 2025

AI sound identification?

Related topics