GaiaDex

For iPhone and Android

Find wild species. Collect them in your GaiaDex.

GaiaDex is an offline species identification game for wild plants, fungi, insects, and other animals. Take a photo, and your phone names the species. A confident result unlocks the species in the GaiaDex of your region.

  • No network connection after the first downloads
  • No account
  • Four regions in North America
  • App StoreComing soon
  • Google PlayComing soon

Do not eat or touch wild plants, mushrooms, or animals based on this app.

The GaiaDex home screen with the round menu open: the GaiaDex, Gaias, and Map buttons, and Settings.
The menu of the home screen.

How the game works

  1. Take a photo

    Take a photo with the camera of the app, or choose one from your photos.

  2. Your phone names the species

    The species ID runs on your phone, with no network connection. In a few seconds, you get the name, a certainty score, and a Dex entry: a description, field marks, habitat, season, and size.

  3. Unlock it on the map

    A confident result unlocks the species in the GaiaDex of your region and on the county map. Your first find of a species shows “New species!”. A species that you find in a new county shows “New for this county!”. The county comes from the location tag of the photo.

  4. Collect your finds in Gaias

    Gaias shows all the species that you found, the newest first. Each species has a rarity: common, uncommon, rare, or very rare. The rarity comes from the number of iNaturalist records of the species in the state or province, compared with the other species of its group. A species that you did not find yet shows as a dark silhouette.

  • The GaiaDex screen of California: 5 of 10,554 species found, buttons for each group, and a grid of locked species. Each locked species is a dark silhouette with “???” and the rarity Common.
    The GaiaDex of California. A locked species is a dark silhouette.
  • The Explore screen: California has 10,554 species and you found 5. Counts for plants, fungi, and insects, and a map of the California counties with Alameda County in color.
    The county map shows where you found your species.
  • The species of Alameda County: 2 of 4,127 found, filters for each group, the safety line in red, and a grid of locked species with their rarity.
    Each county has its own list of species.

Regions

Download the region pack of the place where you look for species. The species ID knows more than 34,000 species of North America. A species that is not on the list of your region shows in Gaias as an extra find.

  • California

    10,554

    species in 58 counties

  • San Francisco Bay Area

    6,560

    species in 9 counties

  • British Columbia

    5,325

    species in 28 regional districts

  • Metro Vancouver

    3,595

    species in 1 regional district

Privacy

GaiaDex does its work on your phone.

Read the privacy policy
  • The identification, your photos, your finds, and your location stay on your phone.
  • The app has no account, no ads, and no analytics.
  • The app does not send your data to us or to other parties.
  • The app uses your location only to find the county of a find and to suggest a region.
  • The App Store or Google Play delivers the app, the species ID files, and the region packs.

Safety

Do not eat or touch wild plants, mushrooms, or animals based on this app.

The species ID can be wrong. GaiaDex does not tell you which species you can eat or touch.

Get GaiaDex

GaiaDex is not in the stores yet.

  • App StoreComing soon
  • Google PlayComing soon

What your phone needs

  • iPhone 13 or a newer model, with iOS 26.4 or later.
  • Android 13 or later, on a 64-bit (arm64) phone.
  • Approximately 2 GB of free storage for the species ID and one region. Use Wi-Fi for the first downloads.