iNaturalist is a great app when you're on a walk and wonder, "What kind of flower is that?" or "What is that strange bug on the wall?". It's a unique social network and citizen science project that connects people with the natural world around them. Whether you're a curious hiker or a seasoned naturalist, you can use the app to record and share your observations of biodiversity, and in turn, get help identifying what you have seen.

The whole process is really simple, as you just take a picture of a plant, animal, insect, or fungus and upload it to the iNaturalist app as an "observation." As soon as you do, the app's powerful vision AI will analyze the photo and give you a list of suggestions for what it might be. You can then share your observation with a global community of over 400,000 iNaturalist users. The community around the app includes hobbyists, dedicated experts, and professional scientists, and all of them can look at your photo and either agree with the AI's suggestion or provide you with a more accurate identification.

What makes iNaturalist truly special is that it's more than just an identification app, because it also works as a massive collaborative project that contributes to real science. When enough community members agree on an identification, your observation becomes "Research Grade." This means that your data, like what you saw, when you saw it, and where, gets added to massive global scientific databases. So, by simply taking a picture of a bug in your backyard, you are helping scientists track biodiversity, study the effects of climate change, and make important conservation decisions. You can download iNaturalist for free on iOS and Android, and there's also a web service you can open on your browser.