152,711 records sent to Ireland’s Citizen Science Portal in 2024

The National Biodiversity Data Centre has confirmed that 152,711 records were submitted through its Ireland’s Citizen Science Portal in 2024.

The portal provides a platform for the coordination of biological recording and allows the public to submit sightings of species that they come across.

Last year, records were received from 8,301 individual recorders across all 32 counties on the island of Ireland.

The continuing trend of the majority of recorders only submitting one record has actually grown in 2024, accounting for 62% of all recorders.

The National Biodiversity Data Centre said that similar to other years, there is a “small but dedicated cohort” of recorders (40 in 2024) who are submitting over 1,000 records through the portal.

7 recorders submitted more than 2000 records over the course of the last year.

Citizen Science Portal

In 2024, flowering plants were once again the most commonly recorded group, with almost 37,000 records submitted.

This was closely followed by birds with almost 36,000 records submitted, while moths were again the third most recorded group through Ireland’s Citizen Science Portal.

Although the flowering plants group was the most heavily recorded group in 2024, similar to the previous year, no species from that group found their way into the top 10 most recorded species.

The data shows that the fox had the highest number of records with 2,552, followed by the common buzzard (1,327) and the hedgehog (1,319).

The breakdown of the most commonly recorded species in 2024 is as follows:

The National Biodiversity Data Centre noted that the top 10 includes three species from specific ongoing projects.

This includes the red fox (Urban Fox Survey), hedgehogs (Irish Hedgehog Survey) and 7-spot ladybird (Ladybird Atlas 2025).

The centre added that this “shows the importance of citizen science and how it can quickly begin to generate large quantities of data from across the country”.

In 2024, Cork was the county with the highest number of species being recorded at 2,336.

Kerry was in second position (2,108 ), followed by Clare (1,775), Wicklow (1,719) and Dublin (1,662).

The 100,000th record through Ireland’s Citizen Science Portal was submitted by Tina Aughney for a Clouded Border (Lomaspilis marginata), which is a species of moth. The insect was recorded in Drumheel, Co. Cavan on the July 29.

The National Biodiversity Data Centre thanked all of those who submitted records in 2024.

The centre added that Ireland’s Citizen Science Portal is available to be used by anyone.

If you see a species and are sure of its identification, the details can be submitted through the National Biodiversity Data Centre website so that the observation can be added to national datasets.