The butterflies of India mobile app is part of the Biodiversity Atlas – India mobile app. You can use the app as a field guide for identification of butterflies, to know about their biology, to organise your field observations, and to contribute to this citizen science platform.
You can download the app for Android phones from this website. It will be made available on Google Play store and the iOS version on Apple App Store shortly.
The BioAtlasIndia mobile app will help take your enjoyment of watching butterflies, dragonflies, reptiles and other cool Indian animals in the field to the next level. It is an authoritative field guide for species identification and natural history of Indian insects and other animals. The app includes custom-downloadable packs on Indian butterflies, moths, dragonflies and damselflies, cicadas, amphibians, reptiles and mammals (some of which are under development), and serves as a companion to the existing citizen science websites for these animal groups (full listing available at https://www.bioatlasindia.org/bai-websites). The app also has advanced features to record field data on species occurrence and populations, making it a truly comprehensive citizen science platform.
The app is part of the BioAtlasIndia project, where data on species occurrence are peer reviewed before publication. The app allows users to directly add their observations to the platform, while using key information derived from the extensive taxon-specific websites. The project is driven by an integrated professional-amateur scientific community that aggregates big data on Indian biodiversity with the goal of studying ecological trends. The platform is also used extensively for educational and outreach activities, so it promotes the enjoyment, research and conservation of biodiversity.
It is a home-grown citizen science platform, custom-made for Indian biodiversity, hosted in a leading national research institution, and supported by a consortium of government and private non-profit agencies. Its prominent features are:
- Easy-to-use, richly illustrated mobile app for field identification of species, aided by a rich array of peer-reviewed reference images
- Online as well as offline functionality, facilitating use in urban greeneries and remote field locations alike
- Useful for everyone, from nature lovers and naturalists to citizen scientists and field researchers
- Allows users to track sightings and organise and back up observations, field notes, data and images, on a secure platform
- Includes an advanced data contribution module to record geo-tagged field data in standardised formats such as 30-min counts and daily checklists
- Covers a wide range of popular insect and other animal groups, downloadable as independent packs for easy use
- It is completely free!
The app is produced by the Indian Foundation for Butterflies and National Centre for Biological Sciences, under the BioAtlasIndia platform.