diff --git a/apps/web/scripts/fill-training-dataset.ts b/apps/web/scripts/fill-training-dataset.ts
index fe16aaf..163d51d 100644
--- a/apps/web/scripts/fill-training-dataset.ts
+++ b/apps/web/scripts/fill-training-dataset.ts
@@ -9,6 +9,13 @@
  * Each run scans the directory, reports deficits, then fills them.
  * Interrupt-safe: re-run to pick up where you left off.
  *
+ * Parallelism strategy:
+ *   - Disease-level: 30 diseases processed concurrently
+ *   - Per disease: all 3 DDG queries run in parallel
+ *   - Per query: all search pages fetched in parallel
+ *   - Per disease: DDG, iNaturalist, and Wikimedia Commons all run concurrently
+ *   - A shared DDG token-bucket rate limiter prevents bans
+ *
  * Usage: cd apps/web && npx tsx scripts/fill-training-dataset.ts
  */
 
@@ -35,7 +42,6 @@ try {
 
 import { getDb, closeDb } from "@/lib/db/index";
 import { diseases } from "@/lib/db/schema";
-import { sql } from "drizzle-orm";
 
 // ─── Config ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 
@@ -48,15 +54,25 @@ const TARGET_PER_DISEASE = 200;
 /** Target images for the "healthy" class */
 const TARGET_HEALTHY = 400;
 
-/** Delay between DuckDuckGo search API calls (ms) */
-const SEARCH_DELAY = 1500;
+/**
+ * How many diseases to process in parallel.
+ * Each disease is I/O-bound (HTTP requests), so high concurrency is safe.
+ * The global DDG rate limiter prevents us from overwhelming DuckDuckGo.
+ */
+const DISEASE_CONCURRENCY = 30;
+
+/**
+ * Max DDG requests per second (shared across all concurrent diseases).
+ * DuckDuckGo is fairly tolerant, but we still want to be polite.
+ * With DISEASE_CONCURRENCY=30, each disease fires 3 parallel queries with
+ * parallel pages = 9 parallel DDG requests per disease at peak.
+ * The rate limiter serializes this so we don't get banned.
+ */
+const DDG_RATE_LIMIT_RPS = 15;
 
 /** Max concurrent image downloads per disease */
 const CONCURRENT_DOWNLOADS = 30;
 
-/** Number of diseases to process in parallel */
-const DISEASE_CONCURRENCY = 5;
-
 /** Minimum image size in bytes to accept */
 const MIN_IMAGE_SIZE = 10_000; // 10KB
 
@@ -73,6 +89,17 @@ const UA =
 /** Healthy class directory name */
 const HEALTHY_CLASS = "healthy";
 
+/** How often (in diseases processed) to flush the seen-URLs cache to disk */
+const SEEN_CACHE_FLUSH_INTERVAL = 20;
+
+/** Max DDG pages to fetch per query.
+ *  Each page returns ~100 image results, so 3 pages × 3 queries = ~900 raw URLs
+ *  before dedup — more than enough to find 200 unique, valid images. */
+const MAX_DDG_PAGES = 3;
+
+/** Healthy source queries limit */
+const MAX_HEALTHY_QUERIES = 20;
+
 // ─── Types ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 
 interface DuckDuckGoImageResult {
@@ -92,6 +119,53 @@ interface DiseaseInfo {
   needed: number;
 }
 
+interface CollectResult {
+  urls: string[];
+  exhausted: boolean;
+}
+
+// ─── Token-Bucket Rate Limiter ──────────────────────────────────────────────
+
+class TokenBucket {
+  private tokens: number;
+  private lastRefill: number;
+  private readonly capacity: number;
+  private readonly refillInterval: number; // ms per token (e.g., 100ms for 10 rps)
+
+  constructor(rps: number) {
+    this.capacity = rps;
+    this.tokens = rps;
+    this.lastRefill = Date.now();
+    this.refillInterval = 1000 / rps;
+  }
+
+  /** Acquire one token, blocking until one is available. */
+  async acquire(): Promise<void> {
+    while (true) {
+      this.refill();
+      if (this.tokens >= 1) {
+        this.tokens -= 1;
+        return;
+      }
+      // No tokens — wait for the next one to arrive, then retry
+      await sleep(Math.ceil(this.refillInterval));
+    }
+  }
+
+  private refill(): void {
+    const now = Date.now();
+    const elapsed = now - this.lastRefill;
+    const newTokens = Math.floor(elapsed / this.refillInterval);
+    if (newTokens > 0) {
+      this.tokens = Math.min(this.capacity, this.tokens + newTokens);
+      this.lastRefill = now - (elapsed % this.refillInterval);
+    }
+  }
+}
+
+// Global DDG rate limiter — all concurrent diseases share this
+const ddgLimiter = new TokenBucket(DDG_RATE_LIMIT_RPS);
+
 // ─── Helpers ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 
 function sleep(ms: number): Promise<void> {
@@ -109,13 +183,6 @@ function countImagesInDir(dir: string): number {
   }
 }
 
-/** Format bytes for display */
-function formatBytes(bytes: number): string {
-  if (bytes < 1024) return `${bytes} B`;
-  if (bytes < 1024 * 1024) return `${(bytes / 1024).toFixed(1)} KB`;
-  return `${(bytes / (1024 * 1024)).toFixed(1)} MB`;
-}
-
 // ─── Seen-URLs Cache ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 
 /**
@@ -138,9 +205,38 @@ function saveSeenUrlsCache(cache: Record<string, string[]>): void {
   writeFileSync(SEEN_CACHE_FILE, JSON.stringify(cache, null, 2));
 }
 
+// ─── DDG VQD Token Cache ──────────────────────────────────────────────────
+
+/**
+ * Simple in-memory cache for DDG VQD tokens.
+ * Tokens are per-query, but if we've fetched one for a similar query recently,
+ * we can skip the initial HTML page fetch.
+ */
+const vqdCache = new Map<string, { token: string; expiresAt: number }>();
+
+function getCachedVqd(query: string): string | undefined {
+  const entry = vqdCache.get(query);
+  if (entry && entry.expiresAt > Date.now()) return entry.token;
+  vqdCache.delete(query);
+  return undefined;
+}
+
+function setCachedVqd(query: string, token: string): void {
+  // VQD tokens seem to be valid for a few minutes; cache for 5 min
+  vqdCache.set(query, { token, expiresAt: Date.now() + 5 * 60 * 1000 });
+  // Evict oldest entries if cache grows too large (unlikely but safe)
+  if (vqdCache.size > 500) {
+    const firstKey = vqdCache.keys().next().value;
+    if (firstKey) vqdCache.delete(firstKey);
+  }
+}
+
 // ─── DuckDuckGo API ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 
 async function getVqdToken(query: string): Promise<string> {
+  const cached = getCachedVqd(query);
+  if (cached) return cached;
+
   const url = `https://duckduckgo.com/?q=${encodeURIComponent(query)}&t=h_&iax=images&ia=images`;
 
   const res = await fetch(url, {
@@ -154,6 +250,7 @@ async function getVqdToken(query: string): Promise<string> {
   const match = html.match(/vqd['"]?\s*[:=]\s*['"]([a-f0-9-]+)['"]/);
   if (!match) throw new Error(`Could not extract vqd token for "${query}"`);
 
+  setCachedVqd(query, match[1]);
   return match[1];
 }
 
@@ -162,6 +259,9 @@ async function searchImagesDuckDuckGo(
   vqd: string,
   page: number,
 ): Promise<DuckDuckGoImageResult[]> {
+  // Rate-limit before making the request
+  await ddgLimiter.acquire();
+
   const url = `https://duckduckgo.com/i.js?q=${encodeURIComponent(
     query,
   )}&vqd=${vqd}&o=json&p=${page}&f=,,,`;
@@ -177,27 +277,29 @@ async function searchImagesDuckDuckGo(
 
   if (!res.ok) {
     if (res.status === 429) {
-      console.warn("    ⚠ DDG rate limited (429). Waiting 10s...");
-      await sleep(10_000);
+      // Rate limited — wait and retry once
+      await sleep(5_000);
       return searchImagesDuckDuckGo(query, vqd, page);
     }
     if (res.status === 403) return [];
-    throw new Error(`DuckDuckGo search failed: ${res.status}`);
+    // Don't throw for transient errors — just return empty
+    return [];
   }
 
   const data = (await res.json()) as { results: DuckDuckGoImageResult[] };
   return data.results ?? [];
 }
 
-async function collectImagesDuckDuckGo(
+/**
+ * Collect images from DDG for a single query.
+ * Fetches up to MAX_DDG_PAGES pages in PARALLEL (rate-limited via ddgLimiter).
+ */
+async function collectFromDdgQuery(
   query: string,
   target: number,
   seenUrls: Set<string>,
-): Promise<{ urls: string[]; exhausted: boolean }> {
+): Promise<CollectResult> {
   const results: string[] = [];
-  let page = 1;
-  let exhausted = false;
-  let consecutiveEmpty = 0;
 
   let vqd: string;
   try {
@@ -207,34 +309,19 @@ async function collectImagesDuckDuckGo(
     return { urls: [], exhausted: true };
   }
 
-  const MAX_PAGES = 5;
-  let lowNoveltyCount = 0;
+  // Fetch all pages in parallel
+  const pageFetches: Promise<DuckDuckGoImageResult[]>[] = [];
+  for (let page = 1; page <= MAX_DDG_PAGES; page++) {
+    pageFetches.push(searchImagesDuckDuckGo(query, vqd, page));
+  }
 
-  while (results.length < target && page <= MAX_PAGES) {
-    await sleep(SEARCH_DELAY);
+  const pageResults = await Promise.allSettled(pageFetches);
 
-    let pageResults: DuckDuckGoImageResult[];
-    try {
-      pageResults = await searchImagesDuckDuckGo(query, vqd, page);
-    } catch (err) {
-      console.warn(`    ⚠ DDG error: ${err instanceof Error ? err.message : "unknown"}`);
-      break;
-    }
+  for (const settled of pageResults) {
+    if (settled.status !== "fulfilled") continue;
+    if (results.length >= target) break;
 
-    if (!pageResults || pageResults.length === 0) {
-      consecutiveEmpty++;
-      if (consecutiveEmpty >= 3) {
-        exhausted = true;
-        break;
-      }
-      page++;
-      continue;
-    }
-
-    consecutiveEmpty = 0;
-    let newCount = 0;
-
-    for (const r of pageResults) {
+    for (const r of settled.value) {
       if (results.length >= target) break;
       const imgUrl = r.image || r.url;
       if (!imgUrl || typeof imgUrl !== "string") continue;
@@ -246,21 +333,36 @@ async function collectImagesDuckDuckGo(
       }
       seenUrls.add(imgUrl);
       results.push(imgUrl);
-      newCount++;
     }
-
-    const newRatio = newCount / pageResults.length;
-    if (newRatio < 0.05) {
-      lowNoveltyCount++;
-      if (lowNoveltyCount >= 2) break;
-    } else {
-      lowNoveltyCount = 0;
-    }
-
-    if (results.length < target) page++;
   }
 
-  return { urls: results.slice(0, target), exhausted };
+  return { urls: results.slice(0, target), exhausted: results.length < target };
+}
+
+/**
+ * Collect images from DDG across ALL queries for a disease.
+ * Runs all queries in PARALLEL, then merges deduplicated results.
+ */
+async function collectImagesDuckDuckGo(
+  queries: string[],
+  target: number,
+  seenUrls: Set<string>,
+): Promise<{ urls: string[]; exhausted: boolean }> {
+  // Run all queries in parallel
+  const queryResults = await Promise.allSettled(
+    queries.map((q) => collectFromDdgQuery(q, target, seenUrls)),
+  );
+
+  // Merge results — seenUrls already deduplicates across queries
+  const merged: string[] = [];
+  for (const settled of queryResults) {
+    if (settled.status === "fulfilled") {
+      merged.push(...settled.value.urls);
+      if (merged.length >= target) break;
+    }
+  }
+
+  return { urls: merged.slice(0, target), exhausted: merged.length < target };
 }
 
 // ─── iNaturalist API ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
@@ -269,7 +371,7 @@ async function searchImagesInaturalist(
   query: string,
   target: number,
   seenUrls: Set<string>,
-): Promise<{ urls: string[]; exhausted: boolean }> {
+): Promise<CollectResult> {
   const results: string[] = [];
   const perPage = Math.min(target, 200);
 
@@ -316,7 +418,7 @@ async function searchImagesCommons(
   query: string,
   target: number,
   seenUrls: Set<string>,
-): Promise<{ urls: string[]; exhausted: boolean }> {
+): Promise<CollectResult> {
   const results: string[] = [];
   let sroffset = 0;
 
@@ -374,7 +476,7 @@ async function downloadImage(url: string, destPath: string): Promise<boolean> {
   try {
     const res = await fetch(url, {
       headers: { "User-Agent": UA, Accept: "image/webp,image/png,image/jpeg,*/*" },
-      signal: AbortSignal.timeout(15_000),
+      signal: AbortSignal.timeout(8_000),
     });
     if (!res.ok) return false;
 
@@ -426,13 +528,7 @@ async function downloadBatch(
       if (r.success) downloaded++;
       else failed++;
     }
-
-    const total = downloaded + failed;
-    if (total % 30 === 0 || total === urls.length) {
-      process.stdout.write(`\r    Progress: ${downloaded}/${urls.length} (${failed} failed)`);
-    }
   }
-  console.log();
 
   return { downloaded, failed, lastIndex: index };
 }
@@ -457,10 +553,14 @@ function buildHealthyQueries(plant: string): string[] {
 
 /**
  * Try to collect up to `needed` images for a disease by hitting all three
- * sources in order. Returns how many new images were actually downloaded.
+ * sources IN PARALLEL. Returns how many new images were actually downloaded.
+ *
+ * Sources (DDG with its 3 internal queries, iNat, Commons) all run concurrently.
+ * As soon as any source completes, its URLs are downloaded immediately while
+ * other sources are still searching (pipeline).
  */
 async function fillClass(
-  diseaseId: string,
+  _diseaseId: string,
   queries: string[],
   needed: number,
   classDir: string,
@@ -469,51 +569,63 @@ async function fillClass(
   if (needed <= 0) return 0;
 
   mkdirSync(classDir, { recursive: true });
+  const startCount = countImagesInDir(classDir);
 
-  const allUrls: string[] = [];
+  // ── Run all sources in parallel, pipelining downloads ──────────────────
+  // Start downloading from each source as soon as it returns results, rather
+  // than waiting for all sources to complete. DDG is (by far) the richest
+  // source, so its results start saving to disk while iNat and Commons are
+  // still searching.
+  //
+  // Each source gets a DEDICATED index range so there's no race condition
+  // writing files. DDG gets [startCount, startCount+199], iNat gets
+  // [startCount+200, startCount+399], Commons gets [startCount+400,...].
+  // The 4-digit filename supports up to 9999, well beyond our 200 target.
 
-  // ── Source 1: DuckDuckGo ───────────────────────────────────────────────
-  if (allUrls.length < needed) {
-    for (const query of queries) {
-      if (allUrls.length >= needed) break;
-      process.stdout.write(`    DDG: "${query.substring(0, 40)}"... `);
-      const result = await collectImagesDuckDuckGo(query, needed - allUrls.length, seenUrls);
-      allUrls.push(...result.urls);
-      console.log(`${result.urls.length} new`);
-      if (result.exhausted) break;
-    }
-  }
+  let totalDownloaded = 0;
+  let totalFailed = 0;
+  let anySuccess = false;
 
-  // ── Source 2: iNaturalist ──────────────────────────────────────────────
-  if (allUrls.length < needed) {
-    process.stdout.write(`    iNat: Searching... `);
-    const result = await searchImagesInaturalist(queries[0], needed - allUrls.length, seenUrls);
-    allUrls.push(...result.urls);
-    console.log(`${result.urls.length} new`);
-  }
+  const collectAndDownload = async (
+    label: string,
+    collector: () => Promise<CollectResult>,
+    indexOffset: number,
+  ): Promise<void> => {
+    const result = await collector();
+    if (result.urls.length === 0) return;
+    console.log(`    ${label}: ${result.urls.length} new URLs`);
 
-  // ── Source 3: Wikimedia Commons ────────────────────────────────────────
-  if (allUrls.length < needed) {
-    process.stdout.write(`    Commons: Searching... `);
-    const result = await searchImagesCommons(queries[0], needed - allUrls.length, seenUrls);
-    allUrls.push(...result.urls);
-    console.log(`${result.urls.length} new`);
-  }
+    // Each source writes to its own non-overlapping range
+    const { downloaded, failed } = await downloadBatch(result.urls, classDir, indexOffset);
+    totalDownloaded += downloaded;
+    totalFailed += failed;
+    if (downloaded > 0) anySuccess = true;
+  };
 
-  if (allUrls.length === 0) {
+  await Promise.allSettled([
+    collectAndDownload("DDG", () => collectImagesDuckDuckGo(queries, needed, seenUrls), startCount),
+    collectAndDownload(
+      "iNat",
+      () => searchImagesInaturalist(queries[0], needed, seenUrls),
+      startCount + TARGET_PER_DISEASE,
+    ),
+    collectAndDownload(
+      "Commons",
+      () => searchImagesCommons(queries[0], needed, seenUrls),
+      startCount + 2 * TARGET_PER_DISEASE,
+    ),
+  ]);
+
+  if (!anySuccess) {
     console.log(`    ✗ No new images found from any source`);
     return 0;
   }
 
-  console.log(`    Downloading ${allUrls.length} images...`);
-  const startIndex = countImagesInDir(classDir);
-  const { downloaded, failed } = await downloadBatch(allUrls, classDir, startIndex);
-
   const newTotal = countImagesInDir(classDir);
-  const gained = newTotal - startIndex;
+  const gained = newTotal - startCount;
   console.log(
-    `    ${downloaded > 0 ? "✓" : "✗"} Downloaded ${downloaded}/${allUrls.length}` +
-      ` (${failed} failed, ${gained} new files)`,
+    `    ✓ ${totalDownloaded}/${totalDownloaded + totalFailed} downloaded` +
+      ` (${totalFailed} failed, ${gained} new files)`,
   );
 
   return gained;
@@ -559,7 +671,7 @@ function scanDataset(): ScanResult {
 
 async function main() {
   console.log("=".repeat(60));
-  console.log("TRAINING DATASET FILL — Gap-filling download");
+  console.log("TRAINING DATASET FILL — Parallelized gap-filling download");
   console.log("=".repeat(60));
 
   // Ensure dataset directory exists
@@ -613,6 +725,8 @@ async function main() {
   console.log(`  Diseases needing images: ${deficits.length}/${diseaseInfo.size}`);
   console.log(`  Total images missing:   ${deficits.reduce((s, d) => s + d.needed, 0)}`);
   console.log(`  Healthy deficit:        ${Math.max(0, healthyDeficit)}`);
+  console.log(`  Parallelism:            ${DISEASE_CONCURRENCY} diseases at once`);
+  console.log(`  DDG rate limit:         ${DDG_RATE_LIMIT_RPS} req/s (shared)`);
   console.log(`${"=".repeat(60)}`);
 
   if (deficits.length === 0 && healthyDeficit <= 0) {
@@ -625,6 +739,7 @@ async function main() {
   const seenUrlsCache = loadSeenUrlsCache();
   let totalDownloaded = 0;
   let totalFailed = 0;
+  let diseasesProcessed = 0;
   const startTime = Date.now();
 
   // ── Step 5: Fill disease deficits ───────────────────────────────────────
@@ -641,33 +756,62 @@ async function main() {
 
       console.log(`\n[Batch ${batchNum}/${totalBatches}] Processing ${batch.length} diseases...`);
 
-      await Promise.all(
-        batch.map(async (d) => {
-          const classDir = resolve(DATASET_DIR, d.id);
-          const queries = buildSearchQueries(d.name, d.plantId);
-          const seen = new Set<string>(seenUrlsCache[d.id] ?? []);
+      // Stagger disease starts within a batch to smooth out DDG rate limiter load.
+      // Without staggering, 30 diseases × 9 parallel DDG requests = 270 simultaneous
+      // acquire() calls queue behind the rate limiter, giving the first disease a huge
+      // head start and the last disease a long tail. Staggering by 200ms each spreads
+      // the load evenly, reducing tail latency and improving overall throughput.
+      const STAGGER_MS = 200;
+      const batchResults = await Promise.allSettled(
+        batch.map((d, idx) =>
+          (async () => {
+            if (idx > 0) await sleep(idx * STAGGER_MS);
 
-          console.log(
-            `  [${d.id}] have ${d.have}, need ${d.needed} more` + ` (${d.name} / ${d.plantId})`,
-          );
+            const classDir = resolve(DATASET_DIR, d.id);
+            const queries = buildSearchQueries(d.name, d.plantId);
+            const seen = new Set<string>(seenUrlsCache[d.id] ?? []);
 
-          const gained = await fillClass(d.id, queries, d.needed, classDir, seen);
+            console.log(
+              `  [${d.id}] have ${d.have}, need ${d.needed} more` + ` (${d.name} / ${d.plantId})`,
+            );
 
-          // Update seen-URLs cache for this disease
-          seenUrlsCache[d.id] = Array.from(seen);
-          saveSeenUrlsCache(seenUrlsCache);
+            const gained = await fillClass(d.id, queries, d.needed, classDir, seen);
 
-          totalDownloaded += gained;
-        }),
+            // Update seen-URLs cache for this disease
+            seenUrlsCache[d.id] = Array.from(seen);
+            return gained;
+          })(),
+        ),
       );
 
-      // Save seen cache after every batch
-      saveSeenUrlsCache(seenUrlsCache);
+      // Aggregate batch results
+      for (const result of batchResults) {
+        if (result.status === "fulfilled") {
+          totalDownloaded += result.value;
+        } else {
+          console.error(`    ✗ Disease failed: ${result.reason}`);
+        }
+      }
+
+      diseasesProcessed += batch.length;
+
+      // Flush seen-URLs cache to disk periodically (not after every disease)
+      if (
+        diseasesProcessed % SEEN_CACHE_FLUSH_INTERVAL < batch.length ||
+        i + batch.length >= deficits.length
+      ) {
+        saveSeenUrlsCache(seenUrlsCache);
+      }
 
       const elapsed = Math.round((Date.now() - startTime) / 1000);
+      const rate = diseasesProcessed / Math.max(1, elapsed);
+      const remaining = deficits.length - diseasesProcessed;
+      const eta = remaining / Math.max(0.01, rate);
       console.log(
         `  [Batch ${batchNum}/${totalBatches}] checkpoint — ` +
-          `${totalDownloaded} downloaded so far (${elapsed}s elapsed)`,
+          `${totalDownloaded} downloaded, ` +
+          `${diseasesProcessed}/${deficits.length} diseases (${rate.toFixed(1)}/s, ` +
+          `ETA: ${Math.round(eta)}s)`,
       );
     }
   }
@@ -690,26 +834,22 @@ async function main() {
 
     const healthySeen = new Set<string>(seenUrlsCache[HEALTHY_CLASS] ?? []);
     const healthyNeeded = TARGET_HEALTHY - countImagesInDir(healthyDir);
+
+    // Run all 3 sources in parallel for the healthy class too
+    const [ddgUrls, inatUrls, commonsUrls] = await Promise.allSettled([
+      collectImagesDuckDuckGo(
+        allHealthyQueries.slice(0, MAX_HEALTHY_QUERIES),
+        healthyNeeded,
+        healthySeen,
+      ),
+      searchImagesInaturalist(allHealthyQueries[0], healthyNeeded, healthySeen),
+      searchImagesCommons(allHealthyQueries[0], healthyNeeded, healthySeen),
+    ]);
+
     const allUrls: string[] = [];
-
-    // Try each source with up to 20 healthy queries
-    const sources = [
-      { name: "DDG", collector: collectImagesDuckDuckGo },
-      { name: "iNat", collector: searchImagesInaturalist },
-      { name: "Commons", collector: searchImagesCommons },
-    ] as const;
-
-    for (const source of sources) {
-      if (allUrls.length >= healthyNeeded) break;
-      console.log(`\n  Source: ${source.name}`);
-
-      for (const query of allHealthyQueries.slice(0, 20)) {
-        if (allUrls.length >= healthyNeeded) break;
-
-        process.stdout.write(`    "${query}"... `);
-        const result = await source.collector(query, healthyNeeded - allUrls.length, healthySeen);
-        allUrls.push(...result.urls);
-        console.log(`${result.urls.length} new`);
+    for (const settled of [ddgUrls, inatUrls, commonsUrls]) {
+      if (settled.status === "fulfilled") {
+        allUrls.push(...settled.value.urls);
       }
     }
 
@@ -763,6 +903,6 @@ async function main() {
 }
 
 main().catch((err) => {
-  console.error("\nFatal error:", err);
+  console.error("\nFatal error:", `\n${err}`);
   process.exit(1);
 });
diff --git a/apps/web/scripts/verify-images.py b/apps/web/scripts/verify-images.py
deleted file mode 100644
index ea5a94a..0000000
--- a/apps/web/scripts/verify-images.py
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,36 +0,0 @@
-#!/usr/bin/env python3
-"""Verify all plant image URLs work."""
-import json
-import urllib.parse
-import urllib.request
-import urllib.error
-import time
-import sys
-
-with open('src/data/plants.json') as f:
-    plants = json.load(f)
-
-def check_url(url):
-    time.sleep(0.5)
-    req = urllib.request.Request(url, headers={'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/5.0'})
-    try:
-        resp = urllib.request.urlopen(req, timeout=10)
-        ct = resp.headers.get('Content-Type', '')
-        cl = resp.headers.get('Content-Length', '?')
-        if 'image' in ct:
-            return (True, f'HTTP {resp.status} {ct} {cl}B')
-        return (False, f'not image: {ct}')
-    except urllib.error.HTTPError as e:
-        return (False, f'HTTP {e.code}')
-    except Exception as e:
-        return (False, str(e))
-
-all_ok = True
-for plant in plants:
-    ok, msg = check_url(plant['imageUrl'])
-    status = '✅' if ok else '❌'
-    if not ok:
-        all_ok = False
-    print(f'  {plant["id"]:20s} {status} {msg}')
-
-sys.exit(0 if all_ok else 1)