Araucaria Spotter
A community map of the monkey puzzle tree, far from the Andes.
Araucaria araucana is a living fossil, a tree whose ancestors stood among dinosaurs, with reptile-like leaves and a sharp spiral crown. It is endangered in the wild, where it grows only in Chile and Argentina, and yet, planted, it turns up in parks and front gardens all over Europe. Araucaria Spotter is a free, community-made map of where it has ended up. People record the trees they find, and the map shows how far the species has travelled.
More than 500 trees recorded around the world so far, and more coming in every day. It is a web app today, and an Android version is on Google Play soon. I grew up in Bariloche, where the tree is native, and this started as a game of spotting them on the street and seeing how far they had got.