Download PDFMarkdown Version
ClaudeChatGPTPerplexityGeminiMicrosoft CopilotRaycastMeta AIGrokZ.aiQwenKimi
DeepSeekMistralCursorVS CodeWindsurfJetBrainsClineLovableVercel AI SDKLangChain

Use iNaturalist with your AI.

Connect your account once and let the AI you already use work with it, without building another integration. Explore biodiversity data. search wildlife observations, identify species, find taxa and discover nature projects.

Included with plan

Ask AI about this Connector

Developed, maintained, and hosted by Vinkius.

MCP VERIFIED · PRODUCTION READY · VINKIUS GUARANTEED

Waiting for input…

Works with modern AI clients that support MCP, including ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, and more.

ChatGPTClaudeCursorPerplexityGeminiMicrosoft CopilotRaycastMeta AI

Complete set · 10 capabilities

The complete iNaturalist capability set.

These are the exact actions your AI can choose when you ask it to work with iNaturalist.

Capability set01 / 03

01-04

4 capabilities in this set.

Part of 10 available through iNaturalist.

  1. 01

    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)

  2. 02

    Get observation

    Get a specific iNaturalist observation by ID

  3. 03

    Get projects

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

  4. 04

    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

Capability set02 / 03

05-07

3 capabilities in this set.

Part of 10 available through iNaturalist.

  1. 05

    Get taxon

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

  2. 06

    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

  3. 07

    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

Capability set03 / 03

08-10

3 capabilities in this set.

Part of 10 available through iNaturalist.

  1. 08

    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

  2. 09

    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

  3. 10

    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.)

Observed, not estimated

937ms average. Fast in production.

iNaturalist is checked daily against the live service.

Daily averagePeak 1209ms
Aug 20Today
Fastest day
746ms
Slowest day
1209ms
14-day trend
Slowing+24%

Connect your client

One URL. Every client.

Activate the Connector, copy your link, and paste it into the client you already use. 10 capabilities arrive ready to run.

Preview access · not provider authentication

The vk_preview_* token belongs to Vinkius preview infrastructure. It lets Claude discover and display the capabilities of iNaturalist, so you can see the experience inside your AI.

It does not authenticate your account with iNaturalist. Actions requiring credentials or live account data may not run until you activate the Connector and authorize the service.

iNaturalist Connector

You're all set. Choose your MCP client and follow the setup instructions.

Connector linkhttps://edge.vinkius.com/vk_preview_PM4BDToKuNUD3Iuz43FYIh8dXEkimscUd6YccCTM/mcp

Claude Desktop

Follow the steps below to connect in seconds.

  1. 1In Claude Desktop, open Settings → Connectors.
  2. 2Click “Add custom connector” and paste the connector link above as the remote MCP server URL.
  3. 3Click Add and start a new chat — iNaturalist capabilities are ready to use.
Configuration · claude_desktop_config.jsonCopy
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "inaturalist-mcp": {
      "url": "https://edge.vinkius.com/vk_preview_PM4BDToKuNUD3Iuz43FYIh8dXEkimscUd6YccCTM/mcp"
    }
  }
}
  • Claude
  • ChatGPT
  • Cursor
  • VS Code
  • Windsurf
  • Claude Code
  • JetBrains
  • Cline

Step-by-step instructions for each client are in the guide. How to connect

FAQ

Questions iNaturalist owners ask.

  • 01

    Do I need an iNaturalist account?

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

  • 02

    What kind of species data is available?

    iNaturalist has 150M+ observations of plants, animals, fungi, insects and more. Each observation includes species ID, photos, location, date, observer info and community identifications.

  • 03

    Can I search for species in my area?

    Yes! Use search_observations with place_id, or lat/lng/radius parameters to filter by location. You can also use get_species_counts with place_id to see which species are most commonly observed in an area.

Explore

More in Data Management

Suggestions