Can you upload trail cam videos to INaturalist?
Short answer: no. You cannot upload any video to iNat. You can take a still of the video and give a link to the video that you host somewhere else.
About trailcams: even though it isn’t really an encounter of you with the organism, it seems to be accepted that the encounter of your device with the organism is a valid observation.
I agree and will echo the above - it needs to be the observer’s trailcam (not just an online one or some other source)
Another option might be turning it into a GIF to make an animated observation. Examples of when I used it:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/190569919
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/190800091
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/190567041
Files cannot be larger than 20MB if I remember correctly. So you cannot upload super long or super high quality GIFs. Additionally, you cannot upload GIFs via the iPhone app. It will just end up being a still image. You also cannot view the GIFs there.
I do not know whether the website is the only place allowing this functionality or whether the Android App or iNat Next allow it too.
Edit: you can view animated GIFs on iNat next
You can upload animated GIFs but staff have also indicated that continued support for these is not guaranteed, so I would not depend on it.
Oh, really? :(
That‘d be sad. Especially for microscopic organisms, movement can be a very important characteristic
Linking to a relatively permanent video repository or other external hosting is fine and may be a good way to communicate this info.