About the project
NAHPU — NAtural History Project Utility — is a free, open-source digital field catalog for natural history collections, supporting major desktop and mobile operating systems.
Taken on Mt. Bawakaraeng, Indonesia, by Heru Handika.
What NAHPU catalogs
Specimen fields follow the conventions of each discipline, and a single project can hold more than one format. Two stable format are field tested, three are in beta, and one more is in active development. Invertebrate zoology currently focuses on terrestrial and freshwater taxa, and we are expanding it to marine invertebrates.
The name NAHPU is derived from the Greater Malay Chevrotain, Tragulus napu, a small deer of the tropical forests of Southeast Asia.
Our mission
NAHPU complies with the Darwin Core standard and follows the FAIR principles and Frictionless Data. The app uses the Material Design system for a consistent interface across platforms and accommodates users visual impairments and color blindness.
NAHPU is designed with genomic studies, parasite surveillance of non-model organisms, and remote fieldwork in mind. It simplifies associating digital assets, such as photographs or audio recordings and features fields to keep track tissue quality and parasite information. Built with high-performance programming languages and frameworks, NAHPU runs smoothly across a wide range of devices while minimizing battery usage.
NAHPU records detailed information about collected specimens, including sites, collection dates, measurements, associated specimen parts and preservation, field personnel, and collection methods. Real-time statistics help you monitor collecting activities and make informed decisions to prevent over-collection and collector bias. Shareable controlled vocabularies and app configurations keep every device, collaborator, and data user on the same standards. Together, these features support responsible and reproducible research.
By adhering to open standards, NAHPU enables data sharing and supports pipelines you can run to transfer records from the field to museum databases, and data analytics using standard formats. NAHPU works fully offline and keeps your data on your device. Nothing is shared or merged unless you choose to export, share, or merge it.
NAHPU is free and open source on all major desktop and mobile platforms, and prioritizes usability for collectors and researchers. We are actively working on internationalization, including multi-language and locale support, and welcome contributors of all backgrounds.
How we build
Grounded in decades of experience in both field biology and software development, NAHPU incorporates expert input to design catalog formats and workflows tailored to different biological collections.
Thoughtful aesthetics reduce visual fatigue, improve clarity, and ensure the most important information stands out first.
We make deliberate engineering choices to maximize performance, resource efficiency, and long-term maintainability, even when they require sophisticated technical solutions.
Looking ahead
The paleontology catalog format is in active development, and invertebrate zoology is expanding from terrestrial and freshwater taxa to marine invertebrates. If you are an expert in a taxon group NAHPU does not yet cover and would like to support its development, please reach out to us.
Outlier detection, morphometric analysis, and deep learning image processing are in progress, with audio analytics next in line. All of it runs on the device as records are entered, so insights arrive during fieldwork.
Integrate external resources linked to the collected taxon, streamline taxon imports and validation, and support student learning. GenBank, Crossref, and the Mammal Diversity Database are among the resources we plan to integrate.
Timeline
Development of NAHPU begins on GitHub.
4 years, 2 months of development
First stable release, codename Tropical Mountains.
Ichthyology catalog format for fish specimens, in beta.
Links to GenBank, Crossref, and the Mammal Diversity Database.
On-device analysis of specimen measurements.
Catalog format for fossil specimens.
Trait analyses using deep learning.
Planned dates are targets, not guarantees, and may change. We list only features already in development.
Photographs by Heru Handika.
