500,000 Taxa on iNaturalist!

We've reached an incredible milestone — 500,000 unique taxa documented on iNaturalist! According to 2022 IUCN estimates, that’s nearly a quarter (23%) of all known species on Earth. A unique capacity to census 100k+ species annually Remarkably, 64% of these 500,000 taxa were observed within the last year. For context, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) took 200 years of specimen collection and processing to record 530,000 taxa. Recently, DNA barcoding initiatives like the International Barcode of Life Consortium have made incredible strides, but require multiple years to process hundreds of thousands of taxa. Right now, iNaturalist is the only initiative on Earth capable of cataloging hundreds of thousands of species within a single year. All Remaining Unobserved Birds Birds stand out as a group where nearly all of the species have been observed on iNaturalist. The map below highlights the 349 bird species (2%) yet to be recorded on the platform. Your brow...