All about Search

All observations are indexed.
In particular, all names are indexed:

• binomial name
• common name
• Dutch common name

So you can search for:

• Hemlock varnish shelf
• Ganoderma tsuga
• Gesteelde lakzwam

These same properties also get indexed up the observation’s phylogenetic tree. So you can look for terms such as:

• Fungi
• Snakes
• Zoogdieren
• Aves
• Polyporales

Location is indexed too:

• Belgium
• Northampton

Additionally, the following boolean flags are being indexed, and can be used as search terms:

• research grade
• native
• introduced
• threatened
• endemic
• extinct

Wildcards

Only remember part of a name? Let’s say you don’t quite remember the ganoderma genus, but a part of it. These searches might get you there:

• Gano*
• *anod*
• *derma

Boolean search

+ means yay, - means nay. Use these prefixes for boolean search.

• fungi -research will return fungi, but not ones that are research (grade), so that’s a quick way to see ones that need ID at iNaturalist.
• fungi +research will now return only the ones that are research grade. However, note that fungi isn’t a mandatory term for the search, meaning it will also return research grade observations that aren’t fungi (but they should appear after the fungi as the search score should be lower).
• +fungi +research makes both terms mandatory, only research (grade) fungi returned.

date and information from wikipedia are currently not being indexed.