MOL Press
Map of Life, the biodiversity in your hand
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
Map of Life builds on a global scientific effort to help you discover, identify and record species worldwide.
Map of Life is an application about biodiversity that gathers data from observations and references from numerous databases throughout the world, with information on different animal groups and plants. Some differences were detected between the mobile and the web app version, so they will be described separately.
The mobile app offers a lateral menu with different options:
What’s around me, option based on the geolocation of the user, delimiting an area (the radius is unknown) on which the information is extracted. Search the map by entering a place name or clicking on the map. Search for species by common or scientific name. My records, where you can upload your sightings after opening a free account. Settings, section where you can select the language or access to the help (only in English), for example. The information for each species includes a data sheet with a description taken from Wikipedia (in the selected language for the app), a map of geographical distribution and multiple images, in addition to the classification of the IUCN Red List.
The web app is more complete than the mobile version, since from the “Detailed Map” option you can filter information such as the range of years or the uncertainty, related in this case with geolocation errors (less accurate in old sightings and more detailed in actual observations made with modern devices).