Batch upload of Kárpáti Marcell's observations
An old friend of mine, Kárpáti Marcell contacted me with the question of whether I could record his 2025 summer observations, which he had already recorded on iNaturalist. It was about 800 photos and 600 observation records. I was happy to fulfill the request.
The izeltlabuak.hu website primarily focuses on arthropods found in Hungary. This entry also deals with Hungarian fauna.
Background of the Request
Marcell had recorded his photos on iNaturalist. He's a long-time izeltlabuak.hu user with over 16,000 recorded observations. Now, due to a mobile phone issue, he asked me to help with batch recording. It would have been time-consuming for him to find the old photos on his phone and save them on izeltlabuak.hu as well.
To transfer the observations and photos, he exported them from iNaturalist that he wanted to record on izeltlabuak.hu as well.
Community Value
Batch upload makes it possible for large amounts of valuable natural data to enter the system and thus be shared with the community. This is particularly important because:
- Scientific value: Photos containing location data provide accurate distribution data
- Temporal data: Creation dates help track changes in species occurrence
The Task
I received data for a total of 613 observations in a CSV file. The summary contained the observation timestamps and location coordinates, as well as the determinations given to the observations. One observation could have multiple photos, but the iNaturalist export only included one featured image. To access all photos, I had to use the iNaturalist API. Marcell requested that I record the determinations only as suggested determinations on izeltlabuak.hu in case they might need refinement.
The Process Steps:
- Querying all photos belonging to observations via iNaturalist API based on CSV: I used the iNaturalist API to retrieve the photos.
- Downloading photos from iNaturalist: I downloaded the photos from iNaturalist based on the URLs found in the API response.
- Photo Preparation: I uploaded the photos to our own system, which were automatically processed.
- Creating Observations: I automatically created observations with the appropriate data and assigned the photos to them.
- Suggested Determinations: I manually submitted determinations for the main categories (beetles, bugs, etc.), and for the rest, I used the suggested determinations.
After completing the import, there were some observations left that Marcell deleted because he had already recorded them on izeltlabuak.hu earlier.
Benefits of Automation
Manual recording would have taken a long time for this many observations. The automated process was completed in a few hours, and the quality was also better because fewer human errors occurred.
Results
631 observations and 855 photos were recorded. This significantly contributes to the Hungarian arthropod database.
It's particularly good news that most of the observations were made in Romania. This way, observations from other countries can be expanded, and we can see observations and photos of rarer animals in the domestic fauna on the platform.
You can find the detailed results in the List of Kárpáti Marcell's batch uploaded observations post.
Rare species recorded during the import:
Community Service
This type of assistance is not a unique case. If you are in a similar situation and have a large amount of valuable natural data that you would like to share with the community, please contact us. We help with batch uploads!
I am grateful to Marcell for sharing his observations with the community on the izeltlabuak.hu platform!
