This is a kinda to help new users to know iNat more deeply, and even for those who want to know iNat deeper (like me). What is your favourite feature on iNat?
One resource to help you delve deeper into iNat is @thebeachcomber’s article available here: https://ala.org.au/publications/a-guide-to-inaturalist/
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Projects. Collection projects are an inviting way to display and use your chosen set of filters. https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/great-southern-bioblitz-2025-umbrella
Traditional projects let you add only those obs which fit non-filter requirements. https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/fynbos-rambles-on-the-cape-peninsula
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OpenAPI. I can get raw data and make many interesting investigations and approaches on it.
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Right now my favourite iNaturalist feature is the observation fields. It allows me to document what species of insect are pollinating different species of plants. Over a long timespan I’ll be able to gather so much information using this feature.
I’ve always been very curious about what insect species are attracted to the flowers of what plants. With this observation field we have the chance to record these ecological interactions.
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Not sure if it’s a feature, but the design choice that forces people to add an ID of what they do think something is (at various taxonomic levels) and not just say “no” is one of the core factors that I think makes iNat work. It has its downsides (like everything does), but it’s so important.
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user defined observation fields and tags. i like that they support the intellectual curiosity of every user. allowing them to assign their own values to their observations and then extract that data using the values that they, themselves defined. it makes normalization very difficult, but it’s probably worth it.
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Oh, it’s a feature all right, even if would-be naysayers don’t think so.
My favorite feature is the dynamic life list. Sometimes I like to look at my species, not in the order that I uploaded them, but in terms of how they relate to each other.
A close runner-up is the map. I can see where I have observed; I can also pick any point on the earth’s surface and see what has been observed there.
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I use the map a lot while finding observations to id.
Another vote for Projects. I love them! There are so many interesting ones!
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Especially Collection projects. Automatically get the observation there instead of relying on me to remember.
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The people.
I consider myself lucky to be surrounded by nice people but finding a shared passion is not a given. iNat and the forum provides a sort of a loosely connected community based on shared interest and a shared vocabulary.
Participating provides a big push to improve my skills.
iNat has a lot of good technical features. I will explore them in more detail when the need arises.
The geographical search with timeline filters allows me a glimpse into the past, places I visited and what have I seen there, also the possibilities of what can I expect to find at my planned destinations.
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Oh yay! Another fun rabbit hole to dive into. I confess that until you mentioned it, I’ve never spent any time looking at mine. I mostly just look at my observations through the simple list of species, ocassionally filtering by iconic taxa.
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Guides, as far as I know, are “as is”, and are not working well as of now. I used a project alternative here - https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/identification-of-strongylodematinae-lyncidinae (See the journal). This is an amazing way to use them.
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