I recently attended the annual conference of the American Arachnological Society and there was a lot of discussion about iNaturalist. A lot of folks expressed interest in using iNat, but a short-coming that was highlighted (and a reason many folks still preferred using BugGuide) was the lack of info…

That works fine for organisms that have field guides like flowers, birds, butterflies, etc. For a lot of other groups, that information is harder to cite.

Another related request here: Enable identifiers to add flags to problem taxa to encourage observers to be wary of potential issues I vaguely recall staff talking about thinking about adding something like this, but I don’t remember where and I don’t see a request with an “under review” tag.

[image] upupa-epops: I vaguely recall staff talking about thinking about adding something like this, but I don’t remember where and I don’t see a request with an “under review” tag. One of the ideas from one of their annual retreat/prioritizing/brainstorming sessions (2019): “Investigate ways…

Completely agree. I will copy and paste a post I made that was not approved because your topic already existed: Integrating species identification features in their pages. I often find myself wondering if a flower is from a species or another; if the different pictures of a bird are just because i…

Many people voiced their opinions in favor of implementing a wiki (identification guides) integrated into iNaturalist: https://www.inaturalist.org/posts/113184-inaturalist-receives-grant-to-improve-species-suggestions Honestly, I would love to know if this is still considered. If it is, it would b…

Also, please see a similar feature request! I think this should be one base feature, it’s just that details are different. https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/create-an-identification-center-with-guides-curated-subcategories-events-and-more/48007 Here are few important points of similar nature: […

[image] Create an "identification center" with guides, curated subcategories, events, and more It is very hard to understand how well we’re doing (say, as a local group, or even as iNat as a whole), even though identification is the one thing where you can easily track and show progress. I hav…

See also this older thread asking for something similar: Add Comments or Wiki-Like Functionality on Taxa Pages to Discuss Identification and Other Relevant Issues

Not great that its closed. This seems to be overwhelmingly what people are asking for rather than the blog post with ‘generative AI’, or however their plan is.

Expand the Similar Species tab into an editable identification guide

Feature Requests

escol June 21, 2025, 10:33am 51

I’m gonna link these together:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/what-is-this-inaturalist-and-generative-ai/66140/613?u=escol

Topic		Replies	Views
Are you fine with the current format of iNat’s species descriptions, or do you wish there was more info like how to identify the species etc? General	86	1731	March 16, 2026
Where do we share how to ID species? Nature Talk	44	1023	July 23, 2025
Create an "identification center" with guides, curated subcategories, events, and more Feature Requests web	54	3215	July 21, 2026
The Future of iNat: What Would You Like To See Improved? General	67	1727	April 1, 2026
Add an interactive system to glean diagnostic features from identifiers and show them to observers Feature Requests	18	2935	August 12, 2020

Expand the Similar Species tab into an editable identification guide

Related topics