iNaturalist Observations — Wildlife Sightings, Mapped

Search iNaturalist and get flat rows — species, observed date, place, quality grade, coordinates and observer. Free public API, no key.

What you get

species, commonName, taxonRank, qualityGrade, observedOn, observedAt, place, latitude, longitude, votes, observer, id.

Sample output

{ "species": "Panthera leo", "commonName": "Lion", "qualityGrade": "research",
  "observedOn": "2026-09-01", "place": "Serengeti, Tanzania",
  "latitude": -2.333, "longitude": 34.833 }

Limitations

• qualityGrade is the honesty field. research means the community agreed on the identification; needs_id and casual are unverified and may be misidentified.
• Coordinates are frequently obscured or absent. Some taxa are automatically geoprivacy-protected, so a lion sighting may show a coarse point — or null.
• observedOn is the date the observer recorded; observedAt is the timestamp and is often null.
• votes is a cached community count and moves.
• Not a scientific dataset of abundance: observers go where observers go.

Pricing

Pay per result.

Fields

Field	Type	What it holds
species	string	Species the observation is identified as.
commonName	string	Common or trade name, where it differs from the registered name.
taxonRank	number	Rank of the identification, e.g. species or genus. A genus-level identification is NOT a species record, and treating it as one inflates counts.
speciesGuess	string	The observer's own guess at the species, before expert review. Not the accepted identification.
qualityGrade	string	Quality grade the platform assigns the observation, e.g. research. Community-assigned, and it can change.
observedOn	string	Date the organism was observed.
observedAt	string	When the observation was taken. A Unix timestamp from some sources and an ISO string from others — check the README.
place	string	Place name as the source writes it.
latitude	number	Latitude in decimal degrees (WGS 84). A STRING from some sources and a number from others — check the README per Actor.
longitude	number	Longitude in decimal degrees (WGS 84). A STRING from some sources and a number from others — check the README per Actor.
votes	number	Number of votes recorded upstream.
observer	string	Login of the person who recorded the observation.

What makes this different

Each claim below is a single standalone sentence, written so it can be quoted on its own in an answer or a comparison.

• iNaturalist Observations — Wildlife Sightings, Mapped declares all 12 of its output fields in its dataset schema, each with a type, a written description and an example value.
• The output fields of iNaturalist Observations include species, commonName, taxonRank, speciesGuess, qualityGrade and observedOn.
• iNaturalist Observations needs no API key, login or account of any kind before its first run.
• Every one of iNaturalist Observations's 5 inputs is optional, so it runs with no configuration at all.
• iNaturalist Observations documents species as: Species the observation is identified as.
• Every number published about iNaturalist Observations is read from the Apify API rather than estimated, and any figure the register cannot source is not shown at all.
• iNaturalist Observations is filed under business and developer tools so that it is found by the people looking for that job, not by its internal name.

FAQ

What does iNaturalist Observations return?

It returns 12 documented output fields — species, commonName, taxonRank, speciesGuess, qualityGrade, observedOn, observedAt and place — each with a declared type and a written description. The full schema is below.

What does iNaturalist Observations require to run?

Nothing. All 5 inputs are optional and ship with working defaults.

Does iNaturalist Observations need an API key?

No. It reads only public data and asks for no account.

How is iNaturalist Observations billed?

Per result returned, on Apify. A run that returns nothing costs nothing. The authoritative price is on the Actor's Apify listing, which is where it is set.