iNaturalist APIs

iNaturalist provides two sets of APIS that together provide a comprehensive set of methods to create, read, update and delete iNatrualist data. The user guides for these APIs are linked below.

New iNaturalist APIs

• Provides faster access to read-only public data
• Includes methods that return summarized data for observation counts
• Some read-only methods do not require authentication

Original iNaturalist APIs

• Contains more functionality for creating and updating iNaturalist observation data
• Requires authentication

Lets first take a look at new API methods related to iNaturalist observations that return read-only data without authentication.

1. /observations/{id}

• Returns details for a specific observation id
• Single parameter (observation id)

2. /observations/{id}/taxon_summary

• Returns taxon summary for the specified observation relative to its location
• Single parameter (observation id)

3. /observations

• Returns a list of observations search results based on parameter values provided
• Includes over 50 parameters for filtering the results
• Results are limited to 500 per API call
• Reading all results may require use of page parameter options

4. /observations/histogram

• Counts of observations by time periods for observations matching criteria provided
• Same criteria as /observations method
• Summarized data can be returned in one API call

7. /observations/identifiers

• Returns a list of controlled terms and the count of observations using them

8. /observations/observers

• Returns a lists users and counts of observations matching search criteria

/observations/popular_field_values

• Returns a histogram of popular field value counts by date

/observations/species_counts

• Returns the leaf taxa of observations and counts based on search criteria
• Over 50 parameters for filtering
• Getting counts by time period for each species would require more than one API call
• Only returns 500 results at a time. Could use paging or other filter criteria to limit.
• Can sort by count to get the top 500 observed species matching search criteria

Next: Data Visualization with iNaturalist Observations API

API Datasource, iNaturalist — Nov 4, 2024