Background
The Explore page (aka Observations search) at https://www.inaturalist.org/observations is the primary way for iNaturalist users to search for a set of observations. The page has multiple filters available in the user interface that one can use. Each time a filter is applied, you’ll notice the search URL (AKA web address) changes. For example, a search for all snake observations…
…creates this URL: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&taxon_id=85553
This URL is basically a set of search instructions for iNaturalist and it will always show all verifiable snake observations worldwide if you paste it into a browser (try it!).
By editing URLs like this, you can get search results not available through the user interface on the website. What follows are examples of different URLs you can use to create more complicated searches than are available through the user interface. And remember, once you have a search you like, you can always bookmark the URL to save the search.
Because this is a wiki post, feel free to add your own examples!
NOTE: most of the edits below will work in both the explore and identify contexts, but some may only work in one context or the other.
If some of the following query examples are empty, then propably your default place for location searches does not contain any observations. In that case, just remove the “Place” in your filter page or add &place_id=any to the URL.
If captive observations are missing in the query, then propably “Verifiable” is checked in the filter page. Just untick it or add &verifiable=any to the URL.
To display both of wild and captive observations together in the map view, add &captive=any to the URL.
Search for multiple taxa
We’ll start off with something simple.
You’ll notice the last part of the URL above says taxon_id=85553. That number is iNaturalist’s ID for the taxon Serpentes. You can always find that number by going to the taxon’s page and looking at the URL (e.g. https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/85553-Serpentes for Serpentes) or searching for it on Explore and looking at the URL.
So if you want to search for more than one taxon at a time, you can edit that URL to include multiple taxon IDs. Let’s say I wanted to search for all snakes and all crocodilians (https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/26039-Crocodylia). I will have to change taxon_id to taxon_ids and I can add another taxon number to it by using a comma, so I would end up with:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&taxon_ids=85553,26039,47113
You can append more taxon IDs to this URL to search for more taxa. For example, here are all snakes, crocodilians, and nudibranchs:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&taxon_ids=85553,26039,47113
Search multiple taxa using a List
You can use Lists to restrict a search to particular taxa. For example, https://www.inaturalist.org/lists/1139967-quickspp is a list that is already set up. Using &list_id=XXXX restricts the search to the taxa in XXXX list, so https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?list_id=1139967 brings back only results from the list linked above.
Search for single taxon by name, synonym, or common name
Use &taxon_name=, omit any rank designations
- For a species: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&taxon_name=Pinus+contorta
- For a subspecies: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&taxon_name=Pinus+contorta+murrayana
- Above species: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&taxon_name=Pinaceae
- Common name: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&taxon_name=Clark’s+Nutcracker
- common names used for multiple taxa will only return the first taxon found, not all of the taxa using the name. For example, https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&taxon_name=daisy+fleabane only returns results for Erigeron strigosus, but not for Erigeron bellioides.
- Misspelled names, or names not in iNaturalist, will return results for all taxa.
- Only a single name can be requested
Search for observations that have no identifications
Observations of Bacteria, Archaea, Viruses, and Life show up under the Unknown category. To filter just for observation with no ID at all, use &identified=false.
e.g. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=1&identified=false
Search multiple places
This is pretty similar the multiple taxa URL. Like taxa, places have their own unique ID number, which you can find by searching for it and looking at the resulting URL. For example, here are all observations in Hong Kong:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=7613
So Hong Kong’s ID number is 7613. If I wanted to search for observations in both Hong Kong and Macao, all I have to do is append Macao’s ID number to the end:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=7613,10301
You can then start combining place and taxa search by using an ampersand (&). Here is a search for all snakes, crocodilians, and nudibranchs in Hong Kong and Macao:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?taxon_ids=85553,26039,47113&place_id=7613,10301
Search by bounding box or circle
If you’d like to search an area that doesn’t have a place ID, you can put in a rectangular bounding box or a circle with a defined center and radius. These must be added to the URL manually.
For example, https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?nelat=30.849458&nelng=-94.939413&swlat=30.220087&swlng=-95.792015 finds observations in a rectangular area north of Houston, Texas. You can use Google maps to find the lat/long points – just click on the map and it will give you the numbers.
And https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?lat=38.92&lng=-77.07&radius=16 finds observations around Washington, DC. Radius is in kilometers. Use the circle tool of the ruler menu of Google Earth to draw a circle and to find out the center point.
Search by location (positional) accuracy
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acc: Boolean to filter on whether or not observations have apositional_accuracy, e.g. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?user_id=kueda&acc=false -
acc_above: Show observations with positional_accuracy above a given value, e.g. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?user_id=kueda&acc_above=10000 -
acc_below: Show observations with positional_accuracy below a given value, e.g. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?user_id=kueda&acc_below=3
Search by geoprivacy
There are two params here: geoprivacy and taxon_geoprivacy.
geoprivacy: the observer has manually chosen the geoprivacy for the observation.
taxon_geoprivacy: iNaturalist has chosen the observation’s geoprivacy due to the taxon’s conservation status.
You will have to use both if you want to see all the obscured, private, or open observations in your search.
The three values possible here are open, obscured, and private.
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Obs where geoprivacy is private: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?geoprivacy=private&taxon_geoprivacy=private
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Obs by a single user where geoprivacy is obscured: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?user_id=kueda&geoprivacy=obscured
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Obs by a single user where geoprivacy is obscured or private: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?user_id=reuvenm&geoprivacy=obscured_private&taxon_geoprivacy=obscured_private
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Obs where taxon geoprivacy is private: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?taxon_geoprivacy=private
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Obs by a single user where taxon geoprivacy is obscured: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?user_id=kueda&taxon_geoprivacy=obscured
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Obs by a single user where geoprivacy is obscured or private: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?user_id=reuvenm&taxon_geoprivacy=obscured_private
Search for observations with or without media (photos, sounds)
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photos=true: has 1 or more photos (available in the GUI) -
photos=false: does not have photos -
sounds=true: has audio (available in the GUI) -
sounds=false: does not have audio
Combine for media-less observations, e.g. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=casual&sounds=false&photos=false&taxon_id=3
Search by observation number (id)
Each iNat observation has an id number that can be found in the URL for that observation. You can use this number with id= to search for one or more particular observations. For example, to get https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/51170811 and https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/51170806, use https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=research&id=51170811,51170806.
Exclude one or more taxa, places, and/or observers from a search
&without_taxon_id=¬_in_place=¬_user_id=
These are not available in any of the Filter windows, and must be added to the URL manually. They work like taxon_id and place_id (above), but will exclude observations from a list of taxa, places, and/or observers. (Look up the ID numbers the same way also.) You must use the user id number, not the name for not_user_id.
For example, I want to identify Asteraceae (47604) from Mono County California (1916), but not sagebrush or rubber rabbitbrush (genus Artemisia 52855 or species Ericameria nauseosa 57934) and not from the Sierra Nevada (52173) or the White Mountains (129416), and not my own (51061):
Of course, if any of your “with” and “without” parameters conflict, you should expect to get conflicting results! (or none at all).
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&without_field=and&without_field_id=
are currently not implemented.
Search by active identification
To find observations to which a particular ID has been added (even if that is not the consensus ID), use ident_taxon_id=.
For example, this should show observations which have an active Dysdera crocata ID, a commonly misidentified spider.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?ident_taxon_id=68912
Search for a user’s IDs
If you want to see observations to which a a certain user has added an ID, use the ident_user_id param. For example, here are all observations to which I have add an ID:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?ident_user_id=tiwane
It also works in Identify:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?ident_user_id=tiwane
Search for observation field values
You can specify observation fields and their values in the URL. For example, here are all of the observations with the observation field “Roadkill” set to “Yes”.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?field:roadkill=yes
You can search for all observations with a field regardless of the field value (e.g. the field “Habitat (s Afr)” only):
&field:Habitat%20(s%20Afr)
or with a field and value (e.g. “Habitat (s Afr)=Nama Karoo”):
&field:Habitat%20(s%20Afr)=Nama%20Karoo
You can easily combine these with other search strings. For example, the following shows all observations marked as being of insect herbivores of Ecualyptus.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?taxon_id=47158&field:Interaction->Herbivore%20of=51815
The taxon ID for Insecta is 47158 and for Eucalyptus is 51815 (which you find from the URLs of their taxon pages, https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/47158-Insecta and https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/51815-Eucalyptus). The observation field used here is “Interaction->Herbivore of”. Note that the space in that field name needs to be replaced with a %20 in the URL so the browser doesn’t get confused.
Observation field view
https://www.inaturalist.org/observation_fields/1234
Observation field view for a value: (e.g. Fynbos in Habitats-s-afr):
https://www.inaturalist.org/observation_fields/7498?value=Fynbos (case sensitive)
Ascending list of observation fields:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observation_fields?order_by=name&order=asc
Descending list:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observation_fields?order_by=name&order=desc
Search by Description, Tag, Name, Place
The Explore filters include a box called Description / Tags. This box actually searches 4 things: description, tags, names of taxa with active IDs, and place descriptions. To search just one of these at a time, you can specify a search term and also which one to search.
Specify the search term with &q=searchterm, for example &q=small. Replace spaces with %20, for example &very%20small.
- To restrict the search to the description, use
&search_on=description - To restrict the search to tags, use
&search_on=tags - To restrict the search to active ID taxon names, use
&search_on=names - To restrict the search to the description of the place (also called the “locality notes” or the place_guess), use
&search_on=place
As an example, https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?q=leaf%20miner&search_on=tags searches for observations with the tag ‘leaf miner’.
Search for Annotations
&term_id= - the annotation group
- 1=Life Stage, 9=Sex, 12=Plant Phenology, 17=Alive or Dead
&term_value_id= - the value within the group
- Life Stage: 2=Adult, 3=Teneral, 4=Pupa, 5=Nymph, 6=Larva, 7=Egg, 8=Juvenile, 16=Subimago
- Sex: 10=Female, 11=Male
- Plant Phenology: 13=Flowering, 14=Fruiting, 15=Flower Budding, 21=No Evidence of Flowering
- Alive or Dead: 18=Alive, 19=Dead, 20=Cannot Be Determined
Both the group parameter and value parameter should be included in the URL. And term_value_id should be able to accept a comma-separated list of more than one value.
Here are all verifiable Lepidoptera observations with a Life Stage of Larva: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&taxon_id=47157&term_id=1&term_value_id=6
And here are all verifiable Lepidoptera observations with a LIfe Stage of Larva or Adult: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?page=2&place_id=any&taxon_id=47157&term_id=1&term_value_id=2,6
To exclude observations with particular annotations, use the following similar to the above:
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&without_term_id=the annotation group -
&without_term_value_id=the value within the group
Project-related queries
&project_id= is used by the standard filter window, and restricts a search to observations in a selected Project. This is also a good way to look up and copy the Project ID for use with other Project queries.
Use not_in_project= to find observations that are in a place and not in a project, for example, all beetles in NZ currently not in the NZ beetles project:
place_id=94916 New Zealand Zone
taxon_id=47208 Coleoptera
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=94916&taxon_id=47208¬_in_project=nz-beetles-and-their-grubs
If a project is more complicated than just taxa in a place, you can filter observations based on matching the complete rule-set of a project, or on not matching it:
&apply_project_rules_for=¬_matching_project_rules_for=
NOTE: these are from the iNaturalist API documentation found here (scroll down the page at that link). I haven’t specifically tested these. If they don’t work as expected, please reply to this post.
Search for Observations from Seek app
Add &oauth_application_id=333 to your search string to find Observations coming from the Seek app. For example, https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?oauth_application_id=333.
Sort by Last Updated
This is an option on the Identify page filters, but you can also append order_by=updated_atto search results on the Explore page and sort observations by which ones were most recently updated. For example https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&iconic_taxa=Aves&order_by=updated_at will show you all bird observations sorted by last updated.
Current limitations
- This tool cannot filter the text within comments