A woman walks a quiet South Bay road near Los Gatos at night, headlamp sweeping the asphalt. Every few feet, she stops — not for traffic but for bodies. Dozens of them. Newts, splattered by cars during their seasonal migration from the slopes of the Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve to the Lexington Reservoir. She crouches down, places a tiny ruler down on the road next to a body and photographs it. Then, she walks over to the next one and repeats the process.
She uploads all these images to an app. Years later, the data will force officials to redesign the road.
The app she used is iNaturalist, and this is what it can look like in action…