What is Beat Darwin?
Beat Darwin is a free daily animal guessing game. Each day a new mystery species appears in a photo — can you identify it in up to four attempts and keep your streak alive?
Creatures include mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians sourced from the iNaturalist global biodiversity database. Species pages add IUCN conservation status and full taxonomy when you want to go deeper.
Rules and core twist
- One shared mystery animal per day.
- Choose from on-screen species options; you get 4 attempts.
- Streak tracking and share/challenge links encourage daily return.
- Afterward you can read a short “did you know?” and browse past animals.
The twist is recognition under real-world photography: similar lookalikes are often planted among the choices.
How to play
- Open beatdarwin and study today’s photo.
- Scan the listed species names for plausible matches.
- Pick your best guess; use remaining attempts if wrong.
- After solving (or exhausting tries), read the species notes and conservation context.
- Share or challenge a friend, then come back when the next animal drops.
Tips
- Start with order-level traits (bill shape, ear tufts, scale patterns) before fine colour.
- Cross-check range clues in the background habitat against the candidate list.
- Save later attempts for close lookalikes once you have eliminated whole families.