iNaturalist

liveScienceBiology

Citizen-science species observations — observation search, taxa lookup, top species at a place. No auth.

3tools
0msauth
free tier50 calls/day

Tools

search_observations

Search citizen-science wildlife observations on iNaturalist — ANY organism: plants, fungi, insects, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians. This is the tool for "sightings/observations of <species> in <

Parameters
NameTypeDescription
taxon_nameoptstringScientific or common name
placeoptstringPlace name (auto-resolved)
yearoptnumberFilter to a year
threatenedoptbooleanIUCN-threatened only
quality_gradeoptstringcasual | needs_id | research (default research)
per_pageoptnumber1-200 (default 20)
▶Try it
search_taxarequired: query

Search iNaturalist taxa by name (common or scientific). Returns taxon ID, rank, ancestry, conservation status, and photo URL. Use the taxon ID for downstream filters or to disambiguate look-alike spec

Parameters
NameTypeDescription
queryreqstringCommon or scientific name
rankoptstringRestrict to a rank
per_pageoptnumber1-30 (default 10)
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top_speciesrequired: place

Most-frequently-observed species in a place over a date range. Auto-resolves place name to place_id. Returns ranked species with observation counts and taxonomic info. Great for "what wildlife lives h

Parameters
NameTypeDescription
placereqstringPlace name
yearoptnumberOptional year filter
per_pageoptnumber1-50 (default 20)
▶Try it

Test with curl

The gateway speaks JSON-RPC 2.0 over HTTP POST. You can test any pack directly from the terminal.

List available tools
bash
curl -X POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/inaturalist/mcp \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/list"}'
Call a tool
bash
curl -X POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/inaturalist/mcp \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":2,"method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"search_observations","arguments":{}}}'

Use with the SDK

Install @pipeworx/sdk to call tools from any TypeScript/Node project.

TypeScript
import { Pipeworx } from '@pipeworx/sdk';
const px = new Pipeworx();
const result = await px.call("search_observations", {});
ask_pipeworx
// Or ask in plain English:
const answer = await px.ask("citizen-science species observations — observation search, taxa lookup, top species at a place");