What Is New in BioQuest?
A guided journey, five games, a field scanner, expeditions and badges — and exactly how XP is earned.
By BioQuest Team · 2026-10-02
BioQuest turns exploring Biosphere into a field journal of your own. Every day it gives you something to do, and every species you identify, observe or master is recorded in your field journal.
Start with the guided journey
At the top of BioQuest, Your biodiversity journey walks you through everything in six steps: Discover (the Daily Mystery), Scan (the Field Scanner), Learn (the Species Knowledge Challenge), Explore a habitat (Habitat Match), Connect the ecosystem (Ecosystem Connections) and Review your progress. A step is marked done only when you’ve really done it; you can skip any step and come back later, and no step requires a photo or a wallet. You can also jump straight into any game from Explore & Play.
What you can do
- Daily Mystery Quest — identify three mystery species. The less of the photo you reveal, the more XP you earn.
- Four games — Species Identification, Species Knowledge Challenge, Habitat Match and Ecosystem Connections: six questions each, built from real catalog data, with an explanation after every answer. If you reload the page, your round continues where you left it.
- Field Scanner — upload your own photo and an AI model suggests which species it may be. You can tell us when it’s wrong.
- Daily objectives, today’s discovery and your streak — small goals that reward coming back.
- Species mastery — answer knowledge challenges about a species until you master it.
- Weekly Expedition, expedition paths and collections — longer goals with bigger rewards.
How the Field Scanner adds to your journal
- Upload a clear photo of one wild animal, plant or fungus.
- The model suggests possible species, each with its own likelihood estimate. They are suggestions to check, not certainty.
- If a suggestion is a species in the Biosphere catalog and you agree with it, choose Add to my Field Journal.
- If the species is new to your field journal, the server adds +10 XP — once per species — and the scanner shows the XP it recorded and your progress to the next level. If it’s already in your journal, you’ll see “already in your Field Journal” and no XP is added. Retrying or double-clicking never counts twice, and catalog photos never earn XP.
A scan is a personal identification, not a verified wildlife observation, and it never creates BPE. To document wildlife for a reward, submit an Impact Action for human review.
How XP is earned
| Activity | XP |
|---|---|
| Identify a mystery species | +10 to +50 (less revealed = more) |
| First identification of a species | +50, plus a rarity bonus of up to +50 |
| Complete the daily quest / perfect quest | +75 / +50 more |
| Three correct in a row | +10 |
| Daily objective · today’s discovery | +25 · +10 |
| Species new to your field journal (Field Scanner, species profile or quest) | +10, once per species |
| A game: first completed round of each game per day | +10, +5 per correct answer, +15 if perfect (up to +55) |
| Knowledge challenge · master a species | +15 · +100 |
| Complete a collection · a habitat or region | +150 · +250 |
| Weekly expedition · expedition path | +300 · +500 |
| Each badge tier | +50 |
| Streak of 3 / 7 / 14 / 30 days | +50 / +100 / +200 / +300 |
XP is only awarded for real progress and only once the server has recorded it: repeating the same action doesn’t add more, and later rounds of a game on the same day are practice. XP is never converted into BPE; a few milestones can also create a separate BPE token reward when that reward is active (see Earn BPE).
Badges
Seven badges, each with bronze, silver and gold tiers: Plant Explorer, Animal Tracker, Ocean Explorer, Rainforest Explorer, Species Specialist, Quest Runner and Steady Explorer. You can see them in BioQuest and in your achievements.
Levels
Levels take steady play: moving from level L to the next one costs 300 × L XP (level 2 at 300 XP, level 5 at 3,000, level 10 at 13,500). New titles and features unlock along the way. Your level, rank and streak are always visible in your explorer profile.