Never Home Alone: The Wild Life of Homes

In studying life, scientists have overlooked many regions. Some regions have not been studied because they are so remote. Others because they are so diverse that it is hard to know where to even begin. Then there is the great indoors, which we believe has been understudied in part because it is so immediate. This project aims to document the species that live indoors with humans, including but not exclusive to arthropods. In studying the arthropods (insects and their kin) in Raleigh, North Carolina we found more than one thousand species in homes. As we have studied homes in other cities, we have found even more species, some of them new to science, virtually all of them poorly studied. No one is ever really home alone. With this new iNaturalist project we now seek your help in recording the species in homes around the world. We suspect that in boldly studying basements, bedrooms and bathrooms that together we can make big new discoveries even before we open the front door.