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https://github.com/pyinat/pyinaturalist

Python client for iNaturalist
https://github.com/pyinat/pyinaturalist

api api-client biodiversity biodiversity-data biodiversity-informatics citizen-science inaturalist python

Last synced: about 2 months ago
JSON representation

Python client for iNaturalist

Host: GitHub
URL: https://github.com/pyinat/pyinaturalist
Owner: pyinat
License: mit
Created: 2018-10-10T08:34:57.000Z (about 6 years ago)
Default Branch: main
Last Pushed: 2024-10-01T16:05:50.000Z (3 months ago)
Last Synced: 2024-10-29T19:52:51.446Z (2 months ago)
Topics: api, api-client, biodiversity, biodiversity-data, biodiversity-informatics, citizen-science, inaturalist, python
Language: Python
Homepage: https://pyinaturalist.readthedocs.io
Size: 14.5 MB
Stars: 133
Watchers: 12
Forks: 16
Open Issues: 27
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
- Changelog: HISTORY.md
- Contributing: CONTRIBUTING.md
- License: LICENSE
- Code of conduct: docs/code_of_conduct.md

Awesome Lists containing this project

open-sustainable-technology - pyinaturalist - Python client for iNaturalist, a community science platform that helps people get involved in the natural world by observing and identifying the living things around them. (Biosphere / Biodiversity Citizen Science)

README

        # pyinaturalist

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[![](docs/images/pyinaturalist_logo_med.png)](https://pyinaturalist.readthedocs.io)

# Introduction

[**iNaturalist**](https://www.inaturalist.org) is a community science platform that helps people

get involved in the natural world by observing and identifying the living things around them.

Collectively, the community produces a rich source of global biodiversity data that can be valuable

to anyone from hobbyists to scientists.

**pyinaturalist** is a client for the [iNaturalist API](https://api.inaturalist.org/v1) that makes

these data easily accessible in the python programming language.

- [Features](#features)

- [Quickstart](#quickstart)

- [Next Steps](#next-steps)

- [Feedback](#feedback)

- [Related Projects](#related-projects)

## Features

* ➡️ **Easier requests:** Simplified request formats, easy pagination, and complete request

  parameter type annotations for better IDE integration

* ⬅️ **Convenient responses:** Type conversions to the things you would expect in python, and an

  optional object-oriented interface for response data

* 🔒 **Security:** Keyring integration for secure credential storage

* 📗 **Docs:** Example requests, responses, scripts, and Jupyter notebooks to help get you started

* 💚 **Responsible use:** Follows the

  [API Recommended Practices](https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/api+recommended+practices)

  by default, so you can be nice to the iNaturalist servers and not worry about rate-limiting errors

* 🧪 **Testing:** A dry-run testing mode to preview your requests before potentially modifying data

### Supported Endpoints

Many of the most relevant API endpoints are supported, including:

* 📝 Annotations and observation fields

* 🆔 Identifications

* 💬 Messages

* 👀 Observations (multiple formats)

* 📷 Observation photos + sounds

* 📊 Observation histograms, observers, identifiers, life lists, and species counts

* 📍 Places

* 👥 Projects

* 🐦 Species

* 👤 Users

## Quickstart

Here are usage examples for some of the most commonly used features.

First, install with pip:

```bash

pip install pyinaturalist

```

Then, import the main API functions:

```python

from pyinaturalist import *

```

### Search observations

Let's start by searching for all your own observations. There are

[numerous fields you can search on](https://pyinaturalist.readthedocs.io/en/stable/modules/pyinaturalist.v1.observations.html#pyinaturalist.v1.observations.create_observation), but we'll just use `user_id` for now:

```python

>>> observations = get_observations(user_id='my_username')

```

The full response will be in JSON format, but we can use `pyinaturalist.pprint()` to print out a summary:

```python

>>> for obs in observations['results']:

>>>    pprint(obs)

ID         Taxon                               Observed on   User     Location

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

117585709  Genus: Hyoscyamus (henbanes)        May 18, 2022  niconoe  Calvi, France

117464920  Genus: Omophlus                     May 17, 2022  niconoe  Galéria, France

117464393  Genus: Briza (Rattlesnake Grasses)  May 17, 2022  niconoe  Galéria, France

...

```

You can also get

[observation counts by species](https://pyinaturalist.readthedocs.io/en/stable/modules/pyinaturalist.v1.observations.html#pyinaturalist.v1.observations.get_observation_species_counts).

On iNaturalist.org, this information can be found on the 'Species' tab of search results.

For example, to get species counts of all your own research-grade observations:

```python

>>> counts = get_observation_species_counts(user_id='my_username', quality_grade='research')

>>> pprint(counts)

 ID     Rank      Scientific name               Common name             Count

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

47934   species   🐛 Libellula luctuosa         Widow Skimmer           7

48627   species   🌻 Echinacea purpurea         Purple Coneflower       6

504060  species   🍄 Pleurotus citrinopileatus  Golden Oyster Mushroom  6

...

```

Another useful format is the

[observation histogram](https://pyinaturalist.readthedocs.io/en/stable/modules/pyinaturalist.v1.observations.html#pyinaturalist.v1.observations.get_observation_histogram),

which shows the number of observations over a given interval. The default is `month_of_year`:

```python

>>> histogram = get_observation_histogram(user_id='my_username')

>>> print(histogram)

{

    1: 8,  # January

    2: 1,  # February

    3: 19, # March

    ...,   # etc.

}

```

### Create and update observations

To create or modify observations, you will first need to log in.

This requires creating an [iNaturalist app](https://www.inaturalist.org/oauth/applications/new),

which will be used to get an access token.

```python

token = get_access_token(

    username='my_username',

    password='my_password',

    app_id='my_app_id',

    app_secret='my_app_secret',

)

```

See [Authentication](https://pyinaturalist.readthedocs.io/en/stable/authentication.md)

for more options including environment variables, keyrings, and password managers.

Now we can [create a new observation](https://pyinaturalist.readthedocs.io/en/stable/modules/pyinaturalist.v1.observations.html#pyinaturalist.v1.observations.create_observation):

```python

from datetime import datetime

response = create_observation(

    taxon_id=54327,  # Vespa Crabro

    observed_on_string=datetime.now(),

    time_zone='Brussels',

    description='This is a free text comment for the observation',

    tag_list='wasp, Belgium',

    latitude=50.647143,

    longitude=4.360216,

    positional_accuracy=50,  # GPS accuracy in meters

    access_token=token,

    photos=['~/observations/wasp1.jpg', '~/observations/wasp2.jpg'],

    sounds=['~/observations/recording.mp3'],

)

# Save the new observation ID

new_observation_id = response[0]['id']

```

We can then [update the observation](https://pyinaturalist.readthedocs.io/en/stable/modules/pyinaturalist.v1.observations.html#pyinaturalist.v1.observations.update_observation) information, photos, or sounds:

```python

update_observation(

    new_observation_id,

    access_token=token,

    description='updated description !',

    photos='~/observations/wasp_nest.jpg',

    sounds='~/observations/wasp_nest.mp3',

)

```

### Search species

Let's say you partially remember either a genus or family name that started with **'vespi'**-something.

The [taxa endpoint](https://pyinaturalist.readthedocs.io/en/stable/modules/pyinaturalist.v1.taxa.html#pyinaturalist.v1.taxa.get_taxa)

can be used to search by name, rank, and several other criteria

```python

>>> response = get_taxa(q='vespi', rank=['genus', 'family'])

```

As with observations, there is a lot of information in the response, but we'll print just a few basic details:

```python

>>> pprint(response)

[52747] Family: Vespidae (Hornets, Paper Wasps, Potter Wasps, and Allies)

[92786] Genus: Vespicula

[84737] Genus: Vespina

...

```

## Next Steps

For more information, see:

* [User Guide](https://pyinaturalist.readthedocs.io/en/stable/user_guide/index.html):

  introduction and general features that apply to most endpoints

* [Endpoint Summary](https://pyinaturalist.readthedocs.io/en/stable/endpoints.html):

  a complete list of endpoints wrapped by pyinaturalist

* [Examples](https://pyinaturalist.readthedocs.io/en/stable/examples.html):

  data visualizations and other examples of things to do with iNaturalist data

* [Reference](https://pyinaturalist.readthedocs.io/en/stable/reference.html): Detailed API documentation

* [Contributing Guide](https://pyinaturalist.readthedocs.io/en/stable/contributing.html):

  development details for anyone interested in contributing to pyinaturalist

* [History](https://github.com/pyinat/pyinaturalist/blob/dev/HISTORY.md):

  details on past and current releases

* [Issues](https://github.com/pyinat/pyinaturalist/issues): planned & proposed features

## Feedback

If you have any problems, suggestions, or questions about pyinaturalist, you are welcome to [create an issue](https://github.com/pyinat/pyinaturalist/issues/new/choose) or [discussion](https://github.com/orgs/pyinat/discussions). Also, **PRs are welcome!**

**Note:** pyinaturalist is developed by members of the iNaturalist community, and is not endorsed by

iNaturalist.org or the California Academy of Sciences. If you have non-python-specific questions

about the iNaturalist API or iNaturalist in general, the

[iNaturalist Community Forum](https://forum.inaturalist.org/) is the best place to start.

## Related Projects

Other python projects related to iNaturalist:

* [naturtag](https://github.com/pyinat/naturtag): A desktop application for tagging image files with iNaturalist taxonomy & observation metadata

* [pyinaturalist-convert](https://github.com/pyinat/pyinaturalist-convert): Tools to convert observation data to and from a variety of useful formats

* [pyinaturalist-notebook](https://github.com/pyinat/pyinaturalist-notebook): Jupyter notebook Docker image for pyinaturalist

* [dronefly](https://github.com/dronefly-garden/dronefly): A Discord bot with iNaturalist integration, used by the iNaturalist Discord server.