Underfoot
A field guide for young explorers who won't stop turning over rocks.
Point a phone at whatever just scuttled out from under a log. Underfoot identifies it honestly, tells you where to look for more, and pins it to a growing collection worth showing off.
iOS · 2,000+ U.S. species · guide works offline
Three steps, no manual required
The whole point is that a ten-year-old can run the show. No accounts to set up, no jargon to learn.
Point
Aim the camera at the bug, spider, or roly-poly you just found. No need to catch it or hold still for long.
Identify
Underfoot names it — and says so plainly when it's not sure, offering a short list of likely matches instead of guessing.
Collect
Each find becomes a hand-drawn specimen card, pinned to a corkboard collection that fills in over a summer of looking.
Built like a real field guide
Not a quiz app with a bug skin. Underfoot is closer to the dog-eared guidebook that lives in the car.
Honest identification
Real confidence, shown plainly. When it's genuinely unsure, it offers choices instead of pretending to know.
Hand-drawn specimen cards
Every species gets an ink-and-watercolor illustration, not a stock photo — the kind of card you'd want pinned to a wall.
2,000+ U.S. species
Insects, spiders, and the whole under-a-rock crowd — roly-polies, millipedes, snails, slugs, centipedes.
Where to look
Each entry includes a habitat tip and nearby parks or trails worth checking, so the hunt doesn't stop at the backyard.
Found-here boards
See what's been logged at a park — shown only once 5+ different families have contributed, so no single household stands out.
Works offline
The field guide itself — species, illustrations, habitat notes — is on the device. No signal required in the woods.
From backyard to specimen card
The identify screen, a finished specimen card, and the corkboard where a summer's worth of finds pile up.
Identify
Specimen card
The board
Quiet by design
Underfoot is a general-audience app that a parent sets up and a kid uses outside. It was built to stay out of the way — for the child and for the family's data.
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No ads. Nothing sold, nothing served alongside the field guide.
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No tracking. No advertising or behavioral analytics SDKs, no cross-app tracking.
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No child accounts. A parent operates the app; a child profile is just a nickname and a chosen icon.
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Parent-operated, always. One account, one adult in charge, deletable in a single action.