iNaturalist

iNaturalist MCP Connector for Claude

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Explore biodiversity data — search wildlife observations, identify species, find taxa and discover nature projects.

10 tools Official Updated Jun 28, 2026 Official Vinkius Partner

Connect to iNaturalist and explore the world's largest biodiversity database through natural conversation — no API key needed for public data.

What you can do

  • Observations — Search millions of wildlife observations with species IDs, photos and locations
  • Taxa Search — Find species by name with scientific names, common names and conservation status
  • Species Counts — Get species observation counts by area, user or taxon
  • Identifications — Browse community identifications and expert species IDs
  • Projects — Discover community-curated biodiversity projects
  • User Activity — View any user's observation history

How it works

  1. Subscribe to this server
  2. No API key needed for public endpoints
  3. Start exploring nature data from Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible client

Who is this for?

  • Naturalists — discover species in your area, track biodiversity trends and find local observation projects
  • Researchers — access species observation data, taxonomic information and geographic distributions
  • Educators — explore biodiversity with students, find local species examples and teach taxonomy
biodiversitywildlife-observationsspecies-identificationtaxa-searchnature-projectsconservation-status

10 tools expose this connector's capabilities to your AI agent.

autocomplete_taxa

Returns the top 10 matching taxa with names and ranks. Useful for building search UIs or quickly finding taxon IDs. Autocomplete taxon names

get_controlled_terms

These include standardized values for life stage, plant phenology, sex, evidence of presence and more. Useful for understanding annotation options. Get controlled terms (standardized vocabularies)

get_identifications

Filter by taxon or user. Each identification includes the proposed species, the observation it was made on, and the user who made it. Get identifications made by users

get_observation

Get a specific iNaturalist observation by ID

get_observations_by_user

Filter by quality grade and set result limit. Returns observations with species, photos and dates. Get observations by a specific user

get_projects

Projects are community-curated collections of observations. Filter by place and set result limit. Search for iNaturalist projects

get_species_counts

Useful for biodiversity surveys and understanding which species are most commonly observed in an area or by a user. Filter by taxon, place or user. Get species observation counts grouped by taxon

get_taxon

Returns scientific name, common names, rank, ancestry, conservation status, establishment means and Wikipedia URL. Get details for a specific taxon

search_observations

Supports powerful filters: free-text query, taxon ID, user, place/location, quality grade (research/needs_id/casual), date range, and whether photos are required. Returns observations with species names, photos, locations, dates and observer info. Pagination: max 200 per page. Search iNaturalist observations

search_taxa

Returns taxa with scientific names, common names, ranks (species, genus, family, etc.), conservation status and observation counts. Supports filtering by rank. Search for taxa (species, genera, families, etc.)

See how to talk to your AI agent using iNaturalist.

Search for monarch butterfly observations in California.

Found 12,500+ monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) observations in California. Recent observations from San Francisco, Monterey and Los Angeles areas. Most are research-grade with photos.

What are the most commonly observed species this month?

Top observed species: 1. Rock Pigeon (45K observations), 2. European Honey Bee (38K), 3. Mourning Cloak butterfly (32K), 4. White-tailed Deer (28K), 5. Mallard Duck (25K).

Tell me about the Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes).

Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) — Species, Kingdom: Animalia, Phylum: Chordata, Class: Mammalia, Order: Carnivora, Family: Canidae. 200K+ observations worldwide. Introduced and native populations across North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

No! All public endpoints work without authentication. Just start searching. For write operations (creating observations, identifications), you'd need OAuth2 authentication.

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