SoCal Nature Study Tool: the iNaturalist app

Last year, my children and I spotted a bunch of big orange-striped lizards in the rose garden at the UCR botanical gardens. We asked the volunteers there, but they weren’t sure what type of lizard it was. I looked it up online… didn’t match any photos I found. We were stumped, but I didn’t know what else to do, so I gave up.

Fast forward a year, and we’re at the botanical gardens again, and we saw this exact same type of lizard in the same rose garden! Now we were determined to figure out it’s name.

This time, I downloaded the iNaturalist app. I’d never used it before, but it was so simple to download the app and post a photo from my phone, asking for help with identifying the lizard.

The next day, I had three answers from other local iNaturalist users, and they had solved my question! (Turns out it was a Granite Spiny Lizard).

WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH THE iNATURALIST APP?

With the iNaturalist app, you can:

🌱Maintain your own personal record of wildlife you spot with your family as a type of 21st century nature journal.

🌱Ask questions of the iNaturalist community if you see an unfamiliar plant or animal and can’t figure out what it is.

🌱See photos of wildlife spotted in your area on an interactive map. This is pretty cool - you can zoom in on your neighborhood, or your favorite place to visit… even Disneyland! Then you can click around on different nature observations recorded there.

🌱Submit your own observations for others to see as you participate in Citizen Science projects. You can submit photos in general, or contribute to particular projects in your area - perhaps you’ll help college students looking for photos of wild parrots flying in flocks over your town, or contribute photos of butterflies in San Diego County, or help researches from the Natural History Museum in LA keep track of snails and slugs in your area.

Have you ever used the iNaturalist app? I recommend downloading it… it’s free, and a useful way to both GET help identifying nature and GIVE help by submitting your photos for the sake of community science.

(By the way, this isn’t sponsored or anything - just a tip!)