Get your kids outside with the best nature apps for kids. From the best animal identification apps to gamified wildlife challenges and plant identification, there is something here for all ages and interests.
Best Animal Identification Apps
Queensland Museum Network Field Guide to Queensland Fauna App
With apps covering the whole of Australia, the Queensland version of the Network Field Guide features over 560 species of animals and is an “identify animal by picture app”. Species include birds, fish, mammals and insects. The app is divided into species groups and highlights information like distinctive features, common names, threatened status and distribution. It includes real photographs of animals to allow you to match up what you see with an animal on the app.
Cost Free on the Apple Store and Google Play
FrogID
FrogID is an engaging nature app for the whole family. Did you know you can use your mobile phone to identify the frogs in your backyard from their croak? Frogs are under threat from habitat loss, disease and climate change. Once you locate your resident frog, you can record their call and upload it to the FrogID app. The app will not only identify the frog but also pass on the time and location details to the FrogID team. Recording frog calls with the FrogID app will help provide our scientists with valuable data for the protection and conservation of frogs.
Cost Free on the Apple Store and Google Play
platypusSPOT app
Scientists and Google have joined forces to develop a program to assist Australians in collecting data on one of Australia’s most rare and unusual animals, the platypus. Submit a photo and record your sightings of platypus.
Cost Free on the Apple Store and Google Play
Echidna CSI
This one is a little unusual because, in addition to recording echidna sightings and photographing the sighting, citizens can collect their poo and send it to researchers. If you happen to come across a dead echidna, this is also of interest to researchers and their website offers the ability to contact them. Their website also provides scat (poo) examples to help you identify the scat.
Cost Free on the Apple Store and Google Play
E-Bird
Explore birds and hotspots near you and wherever you go, all based on the latest bird sights from around the world. Your sightings can then contribute to conservation decisions and student projects. E-Bird is a tool focused on recording sightings from specific places, and one submission could feature many species. You would pair this with one of the other apps mentioned, and this would be an excellent start for a junior birder (twitcher)! It is less about identifying the bird you see and more about documenting the species you see.
Cost Free on the Apple Store and Google Play
Questagame
Questagame is a real-world adventure game designed to open your eyes to the unique and beautiful life around you. Start by getting outdoors to capture (just with photos!) as much life as possible. Climb the leaderboard, beat your friends and get expert feedback on your sightings. You’ll score gold for every sighting, with extra gold if you can identify what you’ve found. You can create quests, enter bioquest competitions, challenge other players and connect with other clans. Schools and clubs can join as groups, and you can take this app to the next level with add-on challenges and games.
Cost Free in Apple Store and Google Play
Fun Factor: Gamified and entertaining
Big City Birds
Less an identification app and more a spotting app, Big City Birds is an Australian app focused on five bird species. These birds are well known for their ability to survive and thrive in urban environments, which is why they are interested. These birds include the sulphur-crested Cockatoo, Australian Brush-turkey, Australian White Ibis, Little Corella, and Long-billed Corella. Additional species can be reported by selecting “other.” Taronga Conservation Society Australia and the University of Sydney receive this information.
Cost Free on the Apple Store and Google Play
OzAtlas
The Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) is Australia’s national biodiversity database. Based upon the principle of data sharing; collect it once, share it, and use it many times, the ALA provides free and open access to millions of occurrence records to form the most comprehensive and accessible data set on Australia’s biodiversity. See something new? Photograph it in real-time and then send the information to their Australia-wide database.
Cost Free on the Apple Store and Google Play
iNaturalist
Like OzAtlas, INaturalist is an app where you record your observation of wildlife, share it on the app, and ultimately contribute to the Atlas of Living Australia. Nearly 50,000 Australians have been observers of over 46,000 species.
Cost Free on the Apple Store and Google Play
Plant ID apps
Pl@ntnet
Pl@ntnet has plants from all over the world with over 37000 species divided into themes that are both geographical and also into categories like invasive plants, useful plants, and weeds. You take a photo of the plant you are trying to identify, and AI will work to find the best possible match. If there is no match, you can register for an account and then have validated community members put in their contributions.
Cost Free in Apple store and Google Play
PictureThis – Flower & Plant Identification
PictureThis® identifies 1,000,000+ plants every day with 98% accuracy-better than most human experts. Seventy million users across the world have used this app. Take a snap of plants, trees and flowers and upload them for identification. It has over 10,000 plants in its database. You can also take pictures of sick plants and receive diagnosis and treatment suggestions. The database is constantly growing.
Cost: Weekly or Annual fee after a free trial
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