japht/inatspectro-bioacoustics

iNatSpectro Bioacoustics

A community-contributed dataset of bioacoustic spectrograms derived from research-grade iNaturalist audio observations. Contributions are made via the iNatSpectro browser extension, which renders spectrograms directly in the browser and lets users submit species annotations and recording metadata for ML training.

Dataset description

Each entry in this dataset corresponds to one iNaturalist audio file. The spectrogram is rendered in-browser by iNatSpectro, and the contributor submits the recording metadata and (optionally) an annotation marking where the species call occurs. Entries may include a strong label (an annotated time/frequency bounding box identifying where a species call occurs) or a weak label (species is known to be present in the audio, but the exact location is not annotated).

The dataset is append-only. Each contribution is stored as a separate NDJSON file at data/{observation_id}_{sound_id}_{unix_timestamp_ms}.ndjson. Because some iNaturalist observations have multiple audio files, sound_id (the iNaturalist sound ID) is needed alongside observation_id to uniquely identify a recording.

Dataset structure

Each NDJSON file contains a single JSON object with the following fields:

Field	Type	Description
schema_version	number	Schema version of this record (currently 2)
observation_id	string	iNaturalist observation ID
sound_id	string | null	iNaturalist sound ID (numeric, extracted from audio_url)
common_name	string | null	Common name of the observed species
scientific_name	string | null	Scientific name
iconic_taxon_name	string | null	Broad taxonomic group (e.g. "Mammalia")
audio_url	string	Source audio URL on iNaturalist
sample_rate	number	Sample rate of the source audio in Hz
duration	number	Duration of the source audio in seconds
profile	string	iNatSpectro analysis profile used (e.g. "Bat")
nfft	number | null	FFT size used
min_freq	number	Lowest displayed frequency in Hz
max_freq	number	Highest displayed frequency in Hz
scale_mode	string	Frequency axis scale: "mel", "log", or "linear"
dyn_min	number	Normalisation floor in dB
dyn_max	number	Normalisation ceiling in dB
annotation	object | null	Bounding box for the species call (see below)
inat_username	string | null	Contributor's iNaturalist username (opt-in)
contributed_at	string	ISO 8601 timestamp of contribution

The min_freq, max_freq, scale_mode, dyn_min, and dyn_max fields describe how the spectrogram was rendered in-browser at contribution time; the raw spectrogram float data itself is not stored in this dataset.

annotation field

null indicates a weak label — the species is confirmed present somewhere in the audio but the exact location is unknown.

When present, annotation is a strong label giving the time/frequency bounding box of the species call:

{
  "time_start": 1.2,
  "time_end":   2.8,
  "freq_low":   15000,
  "freq_high":  80000
}

All values are in seconds (time) or Hz (frequency).

Source data

Observations are sourced from iNaturalist, a global citizen science platform. Only research-grade observations are eligible for contribution — these have community consensus on species identification.

Audio files remain hosted on iNaturalist and are referenced by audio_url. The spectrogram was rendered locally in the contributor's browser using iNatSpectro; this dataset stores the resulting metadata and annotations.

How to use

from datasets import load_dataset

ds = load_dataset("japht/inatspectro-bioacoustics", split="train")

# Example: inspect an entry
entry = ds[0]
print(entry["scientific_name"], entry["annotation"])

Deduplicate by recording (keep latest contribution per observation + audio file):

import pandas as pd

df = ds.to_pandas()
df = (
    df.sort_values("contributed_at")
      .drop_duplicates(subset=["observation_id", "sound_id"], keep="last")
)

Filter to strong labels only:

strong = ds.filter(lambda x: x["annotation"] is not None)

License

This dataset is released under CC BY 4.0. Source audio observations on iNaturalist are subject to their individual observation licenses as set by their authors. Spectrogram float data and metadata in this dataset are contributed under CC BY 4.0 by iNatSpectro users.

Contributing

Contributions are made via the iNatSpectro browser extension. Open any research-grade iNaturalist observation with audio, render the spectrogram, and click Contribute to submit.