Goal of the tool:
Help people remember the species they observe, not just identify them once and forget them later.
Alkas lets users build flashcard decks for birds, plants, fungi, insects, and other taxa then study them with spaced repetition. Decks can be based on nearby species, seasonality, manually selected species, eBird imports, or a user’s iNaturalist observations.
Niche it fills in the iNaturalist ecosystem:
iNaturalist is excellent for observing, identifying, and documenting biodiversity. Alkas is focused on the next step: learning and retention.
My own use case was: I’d identify something on iNaturalist, feel like I had learned it, then need to look it up again a few weeks later. Alkas is meant to help users turn their observation history into a study habit.
Is there a commercial component, or do you plan into include one in the future? Are donations requested? (yes/no, explain):
No commercial component right now. Alkas is free, and I’m not requesting donations. I may add something in the future but. I don’t have any plans at the moment.
What sort of data (if any) does your app collect from its users?:
For normal accounts, Alkas stores account information such as email/display name, plus data created in the app: decks, favourites, saved places, study progress, flashcard review history, and similar learning activity.
For iNaturalist, Alkas does not use OAuth and does not ask for iNaturalist credentials. A user enters their public iNaturalist username, and Alkas uses public iNaturalist API endpoints to import observed species, observation counts, and public photo/observation metadata where available. It stores the iNaturalist user id/login so the user can re-sync later.
For eBird, users can upload their own eBird CSV export. Alkas parses that file to match species and build study decks.
Link to your iNaturalist profile:
https://www.inaturalist.org/people/erickarnis
Description:
Hi, I’m Eric, the solo developer of Alkas: https://alkas.app
I’ve used iNaturalist for a few years and have identified almost 700 species. My problem is remembering what I’ve seen, so I don’t always need to pull out my phone to know what I’m looking at.
Alkas is my attempt to solve that problem. You can create flashcard decks based on species near you, what’s in season, your iNaturalist observations, or an eBird import. You can study in Alkas or export decks to Anki. Cards can use photos, and bird cards can use calls where available.
Discussion questions or areas seeking feedback:
- Does the iNaturalist import behave the way you’d expect?
- Do the flashcards feel useful for recognizing species later?
- Is there anything about this approach that could encourage bad observation habits?
- What would make this more useful for beginners?
- What would make it more useful for experienced naturalists?
Not sure why you didn’t get the verification email, I’ll check into that too
