A MOBILE APP FOR AI-ASSISTED SPECIES IDENTIFICATION AND NATURAL HISTORY OF INDIAN BUTTERFLIES

YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THE APP FOR ANDROID PHONES FROM THE GOOGLE PLAY STORE, HERE

The iOS version will be made available on Apple App Store in due course of time.

Read about the associated iBiodiversity Count mobile app.

SEE THE FAQs FOR THE APPS HERE

The iButterfly Explorer mobile app will help take your enjoyment of watching Indian butterflies in the field to the next level. It is an authoritative field guide for species identification and natural history of Indian butterflies. The app offers AI-assisted species identification, and serves as a mobile-friendly, offline companion to the Butterflies of India website, from which it draws data.

The project is driven by an integrated professional-amateur scientific community that aggregates big data on Indian butterflies with the goals of: (a) providing helpful resources and guidance to watch and enjoy butterflies, and (b) 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 non-profit agencies and/or non-profit engagements.

Prominent Features:

• Easy-to-use, richly illustrated mobile app for field identification of species, aided by a rich array of peer-reviewed reference images

• Easy-to-use, highly accurate AI-assisted identification of species using your photographs

• 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

• It is completely free. It has no inbuilt ads, and your data and personal information will not be sold or shared with any other platform or company for a for-profit or non-profit purposes.

Read the associated full statements on data privacy and data sharing /data-privacy at the linked pages.
 

The app was produced as a collaborative effort between the Indian Foundation for Butterflies Trust, Nature's Ark and NextWealth Entrepreneurs Pvt. Ltd., first released in December 2025.

A MOBILE APP TO ENTER, ORGANISE AND RETRIEVE COUNT DATA ON INDIAN BIODIVERSITY

YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THE APP FOR ANDROID PHONES FROM THE GOOGLE PLAY STORE, HERE

The iOS version will be made available on Apple App Store in due course of time.

Read about the associated iButterfly Explorer mobile app.

SEE THE FAQs FOR THE APPS, HERE

The iBiodiversity Count mobile app helps to take your enjoyment of watching butterflies, moths, odonates (dragonflies and damselflies), reptiles, and other Indian animals, in the field to the next level. The app has advanced features to record field data on species occurrence and populations, making it a truly comprehensive citizen science platform.

The app is not only useful for noting down your observations for personal use and research projects, but it also facilitates participation in several major citizen science projects such as Biodiversity Atlas – India (BioAtlasIndia) and Indian Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (iBMS). This mobile app is driven by an integrated professional-amateur scientific community that aggregates big data on Indian biodiversity with the goal of studying large-scale and long-term ecological trends, especially those related to species occurrence and distribution, and those related to biological impacts of climate change and of changes in land-use patterns. The platform is also used extensively for educational and outreach activities, so it promotes the enjoyment, research and conservation of Indian biodiversity.

It is a home-grown citizen science platform, custom-made for Indian biodiversity, hosted in leading national research institutions and NGOs, and supported by a consortium of non-profit agencies and/or non-profit engagements.

Prominent Features:

• 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 professional field scientists.
• Allows users to track sightings and organise and back up observations, field notes, and population and count data, on a secure, stable and retrievable platform.
• Includes standardised formats to enter data as 30-minute counts, daily checklists and regional (location) checklists, with geo-tagged field data.
• It is completely free. It has no inbuilt ads, and your data and personal information will not be sold or shared with any other platform, individuals, company or agency for a for-profit or non-profit purposes.
• You control the use of your data by the larger community by choosing an appropriate copyright license. You can choose to either:
  (a) keep the data generated using this mobile app as completely copyrighted for personal use; that is, not share the data with others;
  (b) make the data available to others immediately for use under a creative commons license, or
  (c) make the data available to others under a creative commons license in a phased manner, for example under a 3-year or 5-year embargo, if you want to publish your results before you make the data available to others. The last option is suitable for those who are working towards their Masters or PhD theses, or working on a funded project with specific restrictions on data sharing.

Read the associated full statements on copyright, data privacy and data sharing at the linked pages.

The app was produced as a collaborative effort between the Indian Foundation for Butterflies Trust, Nature's Ark and NextWealth Entrepreneurs Pvt. Ltd., first released in December 2025.

The following projects and activities are currently at the forefront of what we do at the Indian Foundation for Butterflies Trust:

1. Biodiversity Atlas – India Citizen Science Platform: Biodiversity Atlas – India is a species-based bioinformatics platform. It is designed for aggregating, displaying and analysing biodiversity data from tropical developing countries and other biodiversity hotspots such as India. It is a distributed platform of stand-alone, taxon-specific, natural history websites that give ownership and recognition to contributing naturalists. We extensively use this platform and the family of natural history websites that it drives for research as well as educational and other outreach activities. We currently run eight websites on this platform, on butterflies, moths, dragonflies and damselflies, cicadas, mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. Know more about the BioAtlasIndia platform.

2. Biodiversity Atlas – India Field Guide Series: Biodiversity Atlas – India Field Guide Series aims to produce modern, authoritative, and multi-platform field guides that are integrated across print, mobile and online media. These Field Guides will assist a budding population of naturalists and citizen scientists in the identification, natural history and biology of species. The overarching goal is to contribute to the growth of biodiversity sciences in India through citizen science initiatives using biodiversity informatics. Read more ... 

3. Biodiversity surveys in India's biodiversity hotspots: Currently, we are surveying insect biodiversity in Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh. In the past, we have done surveys in Kerala, Karnataka, Goa, and Nagaland, in addition to Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh. See our list of publications from previous works on biodiversity of these states.

4. Species Discovery: Our scientists, research associates and collaborators have discovered dozens of species of butterflies, moths, dragonflies and damselflies, cicadas, and other insects and invertebrates over the past few years. See the list of species discovered.

5. Biodiversity Fellowships: We offer mentored, full-time fellowships to budding scientists and conservationists. Read more about this fellowship programme.

6. Publication of books and brochures on Indian biodiversity: See our list of publications.