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The App That Aims To Gamify Biology Has Amateurs Discovering New Species

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It's dusk at a park in Dallas, and white sheets are pinned up next to tall trees, fluttering like ghosts in the wind. They've been lit up with ultraviolet lights to attract moths.A handful of people are holding up their smartphones, zooming in on the small dark specks that fly to the cloth."Bugs have become my obsession," says Annika Lindqvist. "And the more you look, the more you have to look at the tiny things, and when you blow them up you see that they are gorgeous." Like a lot of bug fanatics, Lindqvist doesn't just take photos of moths — she uploads them to iNaturalist. It's like a social network for wildlife. When you upload a photo of a moth or bird to the app, it posts your location. Then, both amateur and expert naturalists help identify the species.Lindqvist has uploaded more than 2,000 observations on her profile.iNaturalist has grown exponentially in the past few years. There are nearly 250,000 users and about 3 million observations. At gatherings like this one, put on by

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