Can developers of iNat automatically align Russian names with IOC World Bird List? See https://www.worldbirdnames.org/new/ioc-lists/master-list-2/ Multilingual Version file (v15.1, Excel file XLSX, 7.8 MB)
Not all names are currently up-to-date, and some require changes. I know how to do this for each taxon individually, but it would take too long (nearly 11,000 species need to be compared).
Something similar may have been done for plants:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/russia-inaturalist-world-tour/4698/5
2 Likes
Tatiana, I have a script that automatically cross-checks Russian common names and edits them on the site when needed. A full run across all bird species takes about 10 hours. The last time I ran it was in August 2024; it updated birds using the IOC 14.1b list. More specifically, it added Russian names for all bird taxa where they were missing in iNaturalist.
However, since then both the recommended Russian names and the species list have changed. In addition, the AviList project has emerged, and it is positioning itself as a compromise taxonomy for birds. If iNaturalist moves to AviList, the Russian bird names will likely need another comprehensive review. It may make sense to wait for a broader transition to the AviList taxonomy before doing another large revision.
4 Likes
In IOC 15.1, Russian names underwent significant changes, so I would like to align the names on iNat with this version now. This will make it more similar to eBird and will have less discrepancies. It will be convenient for users who use both sites.
I don’t think this will hinder the transition to AviList in the future, but it will improve the interface now.
1 Like
i haven’t seen your script, but it sounds like you might be doing things inefficiently. there are only ~35000 bird taxa in the system and fewer than 13000 with Russian names. at a rate of 60 updates per second, you should be able to do ~3500 updates per hour (via POST https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_names). unless you’re updating all 35000 taxa (which doesn’t seem like it should ever be necessary), it shouldn’t take 10 hours to do this.
you can probably figure out a lot of what you need to add/update by comparing the data from the DWCA taxon export vs your names list. i would assume that sort of comparison would reveal a relatively small number of taxa that need new/updated names.
1 Like
eBird is currently transitioning to AviList and is expected to complete the switch by October 2026.
Yes, I read about that. But many species on iNat and eBird currently have the same Latin names but different Russian names. I don’t see any reason not to fix this now, especially since it’s not difficult and you have a script for it.
But it’s really strange that it takes 10 hours.
Thank you for the suggestion on improving efficiency. I couldn’t find a POST /taxon_names endpoint in the public API v1/v2 documentation. Сould you point me to where it’s described?
The current Russian bird names in the DWCA export differ from the Multilingual IOC World Bird List 15.1 in 6,925 species-level names. I only update species-level names, not all bird taxa.
this isn’t described anywhere as far as i know, but you can issue a test update in the standard web interface, and you can see what your browser sends to the server, and mimic that. i haven’t tried it myself. so i’m not sure if you can issues the requests directly from a standalone script, or if you have to hook into your browser and issue the requests from the browser (in case there’s some sort of requirement that the request must come from a particular source).
i had assumed that was how you were making updates, but maybe you were hooking into your browser to interact with the page with some sort of robotic process automation (RPA) flow instead?
it looks like v2 has /taxon_name_priorities which might do the same thing? (i haven’t tested. so i’m not sure.) but if you were using that (or something else) successfully before, that should be just as good as going through /taxon_names.
The script has finished running the task to update Russian bird names. As of February 13, 2026, the site has up-to-date Russian common names for 5,969 bird species, aligned with the IOC World Bird List v15.1 (Multilingual Version).
Summary
- 445 species don’t have a Russian name in the IOC file.
- 253 species have non-matching scientific names.
- 3,553 species already had the correct Russian name on iNaturalist.
- For 1,033 species, the priority (preferred) Russian names were set manually by curators or other iNaturalist users. These species already have the correct Russian name in the lexicon, but it is not the one currently shown as the preferred name. Only curators can change that priority.
Limitations of IOC v15.1 as a Russian names source. IOC v15.1 is not perfect as a source for Russian names. It includes:
- typos (e.g.,
Серамская иволгп,Масковый артм, etc.), - non-Cyrillic letters inside Russian names (e.g.,
Скоморох,Пеcтрогорлая фульветта, etc.), - spelling mistakes (e.g.,
Красноголовий курохвост,Темнолиций тохи, etc.), - inconsistent capitalization (e.g., lowercase
камышовка-барсучок), - duplicate names assigned to different taxa (e.g.,
ТуиProsthemadera novaeseelandiae is a New Zealand species,ТуиBrotogeris sanctithomae is a South American species, etc.).
When these recommended names are copied, known errors are unfortunately copied as well. At the moment, there does not appear to be a more complete and higher-quality public source for Russian bird names.
@pisum Regarding performance: I do not currently know how to increase the script speed substantially. In testing, when the editing rate exceeds 9 taxa per minute, the site often returns HTTP 429 (Too Many Requests). The public service rate-limits frequent requests, especially during highload periods.
2 Likes
Thank you very much.
Could you please share this list?
without seeing your script, i’m not sure what it’s doing, but generally, i’m surprised you’re getting rate limited at 9 edits per minute since it usually takes more than 1 request per second to run into limits. so maybe that means you’re using some sort of a RPA flow to automate interactions with the website. if that’s the case, then you might be able to add blocks on https://api.inaturalist.org/v2/observations and https://api.inaturalist.org/v2/identifcations to prevent the taxon page from trying to get information that is unnecessary for your purposes. if the page is unable to make those extraneous requests, then maybe that will allow you to make more of the necessary requests.
What I should do and did for the dragonfly list is to go to the owner of this source and report these mistakes, to prevent they will keep returning.
What language is this script? If it’s C# I am interested.
As of today, these 1,033 species have also been assigned Russian names from IOC v15.1. I also corrected several typos and minor inaccuracies. As a result, 13,015 taxa in the class Aves now have correct Russian common names.
Similar work has been carried out for tens of thousands of taxa among plants, animals, and fungi. I will continue this work.
Please feel free to reach out if you notice any errors in the Russian names or if you have suggestions or new ideas.
1 Like
Great job! Thank you for all the efforts.
1 Like