Digital Naturalism
An interactive retelling of the great naturalist voyages. Sail a watercolor world map, stop at the ports where history was made, and read the field notes, specimens, and ideas that reshaped our understanding of life.
Launch the ExperienceAbout the Project
Digital Naturalismis a project I built to bring the age of exploration to life — following three naturalists whose fieldwork changed how we see the natural world. Each expedition unfolds along its own historical route, with period field-notes plates, ambient sound, and a journal that rewards curiosity. Wallace's chapters are grounded in his own account, The Malay Archipelago.
Three Expeditions
Each naturalist on their own historical voyage.
Charles Darwin
HMS Beagle · 1831–1836
Around the world aboard the Beagle — from the fossils of Patagonia to the finches of the Galápagos — tracing the observations that became the theory of natural selection.
Alfred Russel Wallace
The Malay Archipelago · 1854–1862
Eight years collecting across the islands of Southeast Asia. River barriers, the Sarawak Law, and the Wallace Line converge at Ternate, where Wallace independently conceived evolution by natural selection.
E. O. Wilson
20th-century fieldwork · in progress
From the ant colonies of the tropics to the theory of island biogeography and the idea of biodiversity itself — a modern naturalist's lifelong study of life's small majority.
What's Inside
A watercolor world map
Sail a hand-painted Stamen basemap where each naturalist's ocean route is traced to stay in water, port to port.
Rich stop panels
At every port: narrative, field observations, fossil and specimen pairings, quotes, and an "evolutionary spark" reflection.
A 3D narrative intro
A Three.js opening scene where you choose your naturalist and step aboard their voyage.
A field journal that fills as you explore
Collect findings at each stop to progressively unlock the voyage's great insights — the road to natural selection, one observation at a time.
Set Sail
The full experience runs in your browser — a watercolor map, three voyages, and the ideas that reshaped biology, waiting to be explored.
Open Digital Naturalism