Skip to contents

Download Sound Recordings from iNaturalist

Source: R/get_inat_sounds.R
get_inat_sounds.Rd

Queries the iNaturalist API to find and optionally download sound recordings for a specified taxon. Can filter by geographic location and observation quality.

Usage

get_inat_sounds(
  taxon_name,
  place_name = "Australia",
  target_n = 300,
  download = TRUE,
  out_dir = "sounds",
  allowed_licenses = tolower(c("cc0", "cc-by", "cc-by-sa", "cc-by-nc", "cc-by-nc-sa",
    "cc-by-nd", "cc-by-nc-nd")),
  use_place_filter = FALSE,
  quality = c("research", "all"),
  include_taxon_name = TRUE,
  as_wav = FALSE
)

Arguments

taxon_name

Character. Scientific or common name of the taxon to search for.

place_name

Character. Name of the geographic place to filter by. Required if use_place_filter = TRUE. Default is "Australia".

target_n

Numeric. Target number of sound files to download. Default is 300.

download

Logical. If TRUE, downloads audio files. If FALSE, only returns the count of available recordings. Default is TRUE

out_dir

Character. Output directory for downloaded files. Will create subdirectories "audio" and "metadata.csv". Default is "sounds".

allowed_licenses

Character vector. Lowercase license codes to accept. Default accepts all Creative Commons licenses: cc0, cc-by, cc-by-sa, cc-by-nc, cc-by-nc-sa, cc-by-nd, cc-by-nc-nd. Empty license codes are also accepted. The recorded license is written to the metadata CSV, so the more restrictive NoDerivatives (cc-by-nd / cc-by-nc-nd) records can be filtered out afterwards if redistribution matters.

use_place_filter

Logical. If TRUE, filters observations by place. If FALSE, searches globally, UNLESS place_name is explicitly provided. Default is FALSE.

quality

Character. Quality grade filter: "research" for research-grade observations only, or "all" for all quality grades. Default is "research".

include_taxon_name

Logical. If TRUE, prepends the taxon name to the filename (e.g., "Genus_species_ObsID_SoundID.ext"). Default is TRUE.

as_wav

Logical. If TRUE, converts downloaded audio files to WAV format. Default is FALSE.

Value

Integer. Total number of matching records found in iNaturalist.

Details

When download = TRUE, the function:

  • Creates out_dir/audio/ directory for audio files

  • Creates out_dir/metadata.csv with observation metadata

  • Downloads files named as [Taxon_Name_]ObsID_SoundID.ext

  • Skips files that already exist in the output directory

  • Respects API rate limits with 1.1 second delays between requests

  • Automatically converts recordings to WAV if as_wav = TRUE

See also

Other inaturalist: get_inat_images(), get_inat_species_summary(), plot_inat_species_summary()

Examples

if (FALSE) { # \dontrun{
# Check how many recordings are available
n <- get_inat_sounds(
  "Turnix maculosus",
  place_name = "Australia",
  download = FALSE
)

# Download up to 300 research-grade recordings
get_inat_sounds(
  "Turnix maculosus",
  place_name = "Australia",
  target_n = 300,
  download = TRUE,
  quality = "research"
)

# Global search (no place filter)
get_inat_sounds(
  "Gryllus bimaculatus",
  use_place_filter = FALSE,
  target_n = 100,
  download = TRUE,
  as_wav = TRUE
)
} # }