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iNaturalist

Species, observations and photos from iNaturalist

🐕 AnimalsUNMONITORED
AUTH NONECORS ✓AGENT ?HTTPS ✓COMMERCIAL ?

iNaturalist's API exposes crowd-sourced wildlife observations, taxa and identification photos. Read endpoints are public and keyless (OAuth only for posting). Filter by taxon, place or user — ideal for nature-ID apps and citizen-science dashboards.

—HOW IT'S SCORED ⓘ
▶ Run liveDocs ↗
Status badge · for your READMEshipapis health badge: — · unmonitored
ON PROBE SCHEDULE

We probe a documented GET and expect 2xx JSON — full uptime and health score. Open provider docs ↗

Uptime historystarts after first probe

On our probe schedule. Uptime charts appear after the first check lands.

Example responsefrom provider docs — not verified by us
GET https://api.inaturalist.org/v1/taxa?q=fox&per_page=1

{
  "total_results": 623,
  "page": 1,
  "per_page": 1,
  "results": [
    {
      "id": 42043,
      "rank": "family",
      "rank_level": 30,
      "iconic_taxon_id": 40151,
      "ancestor_ids": [
        48460,
        1
      ],
      "is_active": true,
      "name": "Canidae",
      "parent_id": 41573
    }
  ]
}
Call itcurl · fetch · python
curl "https://api.inaturalist.org/v1/taxa?q=fox&per_page=1"
const res = await fetch("https://api.inaturalist.org/v1/taxa?q=fox&per_page=1");
const data = await res.json();
console.log(data);
import requests

res = requests.get("https://api.inaturalist.org/v1/taxa?q=fox&per_page=1")
print(res.json())
Endpoints · 6On scheduleFULL DOCS ↗
On schedule — GET /taxa?q=fox&per_page=1 awaits first probe
GET/taxa?q=fox&per_page=1PROBED

Species, observations and photos from iNaturalist

GET/taxa?limit=5

Taxa — documented GET route.

GET/taxa?page=1

Taxa — documented GET route.

GET/controlled_terms

Terms Index

GET/controlled_terms/for_taxon

Terms for Taxon

GET/identifications/{id}

Identification Details

Machine-readable spec

We probe a documented GET and expect 2xx JSON — full uptime and health score. Export includes every documented route below.

Response-shape history

Not tracked yet. Shape-change history starts once this API joins our probe schedule.

iNaturalist: common questions

Is iNaturalist free to use?

Yes — iNaturalist is a free animals API. Free tier: Free — limits not published. Whether the free tier allows commercial use is unclear — check the provider docs.

Does iNaturalist need an API key?

No — iNaturalist needs no API key or signup. You can call it straight away; rate limits still apply (Unpublished).

Can I call iNaturalist from the browser?

Yes — iNaturalist returns CORS headers over HTTPS, so front-end code can fetch it directly with no backend proxy. Use the fetch snippet on this page, or hit "Run live" to try it now.

Is iNaturalist up right now?

iNaturalist is catalogued but not yet on our probe schedule, so we don't publish a live status for it. Check the provider's own status page or docs for its current state.