Tips and tricks

Here are some useful ways to get more from iNaturalist NZ — Mātaki Taiao, courtesy of @tony_wills.

HTML codes allowed in descriptions etc

a, abbr, acronym, b, blockquote, br, cite, code, dl, dt, em, embed, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, iframe, img, li, object, ol, p, param, pre, small, strong, sub, strike, sup, tt, ul

Examples:

  • <strong>strong text</strong>
  • <i>italic text</i>
  • <s>struck out text</s> or <strike>struck out text</strike>
  • <a href="http://google.com">link to webpage</a>

To link to an external photograph for ID purposes

I think the specimen looks like this photo of Achaea janata by Birgit E. Rhode, Landcare Research:<br/>
<a href="http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/resources/identification/animals/large-moths/image-gallery/all-large-moths"><img src="http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/__data/assets/image/0015/11157/achaea_janata_f.jpg" width="250px"></a>

I think the specimen looks like this photo of Achaea janata by Birgit E. Rhode, Landcare Research:

(If the image doesn't show up above, it's because Manaaki Whenua–Landcare Research has a habit of completely restructuring its website every couple of years, and breaking all external links.)


  1. The first URL between double quotes is the destination page to link to,
  2. the second URL is the address of the image (in firefox browser you can right-click and choose 'view image' to easilly find the URL of an image on a page),
  3. If using other peoples photos you should honour any licensing an give attribution etc,
  4. Often the image will be larger than you want in an iNat comments box, so you can add the width= parameter, as in this example, to limit the photo size to a reasonable number of pixels across.

Link to already uploaded scale images etc on iNat

(see explanation notes as for external images)

Change "primary" photograph / reorder photos in an observation

You can change the order of photographs you have uploaded for an observation. You might want to do this to select which image is displayed as the main image for that observation (ie number 1) or put a sequence of images into chronological order.

When in edit mode for the observation you will see a "Re-order photos" link beneath the photos, that will take you to a page where you can enter numbers to determine the order of display.


Looking for images suitably licensed for use on wikipedia?

Try: https://inaturalist.nz/observations?photo_license=CC-BY&photos&subview=grid&verifiable=any

and: https://inaturalist.nz/observations?photo_license=CC-BY-SA&photos&subview=grid&verifiable=any


Adding a link to another observation?

If people follow links from iNaturalist to iNaturalist NZ — Mātaki Taiao or visa-versa they find themselves not logged in. So instead of just pasting a link to another observation as https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/985491, enter a relative URL in the form of an HTML link <a href="/observations/985491">985491</a> which will give 985491 and takes people to the observation but leaves them in whichever system you are logged in to.

Find old comments

Comments on your observations:
https://inaturalist.nz/comments?for_me=true

Comments by yourself:
https://inaturalist.nz/comments?mine=true

All comments:
https://inaturalist.nz/comments

Search for keyword in comments:
https://inaturalist.nz/comments?commit=Search&q=wellington

And combine options to search for particular comments by yourself:
https://inaturalist.nz/comments?mine=true&commit=Search&q=wellington

Find someones identifications of a particular species

https://www.inaturalist.nz/identifications?user_id=tony_wills&taxon_id=4690

Further useful tips:

Revised on August 14, 2023 09:33 AM by jon_sullivan jon_sullivan