Properties2

Type	Concept
Note created	Apr 30, 2026

iNaturalist groups every observation under a small set of high-level categories called iconic taxa. They are the colorful icons shown in the app and the values accepted by the API parameter iconic_taxa. There are 14 of them, plus unknown for unidentified observations.

Coverage is not exhaustive of the tree of life — it is a curated set of buckets. Things like Bacteria, Archaea, or red algae fall outside iconic taxa entirely, even though they exist as taxa in iNaturalist.

Full list

Value	What it covers
`Plantae`	Plants
`Animalia`	Animals not in any more specific bucket below (worms, jellyfish, sponges, crustaceans, sharks…)
`Mollusca`	Snails, slugs, octopuses, clams
`Arachnida`	Spiders, scorpions, mites
`Insecta`	Insects
`Actinopterygii`	Ray-finned fish
`Amphibia`	Frogs, salamanders
`Reptilia`	Reptiles
`Aves`	Birds
`Mammalia`	Mammals
`Fungi`	Fungi & lichens
`Protozoa`	Single-celled eukaryotes
`Chromista`	Brown algae, diatoms, kelp
`unknown`	Not yet identified to any iconic group

Practical groupings

The 14 iconic taxa are too granular for everyday browsing. These regroupings are useful for personal dashboards or filters.

4-bucket version

Plants

Plantae

Animals

Vertebrates (animals with backbones):

Mammalia
Aves
Reptilia
Amphibia
Actinopterygii (only ray-finned fish; sharks live under Animalia)

Invertebrates (no backbone):

Insecta
Arachnida
Mollusca
Animalia (catch-all: worms, jellyfish, sponges, crustaceans, sharks…)

Fungi

Fungi

Microbes & algae

Protozoa
Chromista

Unclassified

unknown

3-bucket version (minimal)

Plants → Plantae
Animals → Animalia, Mollusca, Arachnida, Insecta, Actinopterygii, Amphibia, Reptilia, Aves, Mammalia
Other life → Fungi, Protozoa, Chromista (+ unknown)

API usage

The parameter accepts repeated values:

GET /v1/observations?iconic_taxa[]=Aves&iconic_taxa[]=Mammalia

For finer-grained filtering (e.g. “only ducks”) use taxon_id instead — every taxon has a numeric ID, lookup via /v1/taxa?q=mandarin+duck.

Diego's Digital Garden

iNaturalist Taxonomy