The IDentifyIt Cycads app is a practical, easy-to-use identification guide that works as an elimination key. It was created to assist customs officials, law enforcement officers, border police and Environmental Management Inspectors (EMI’s) with the identification of South African Encephalartos species, thereby enabling better regulation and monitoring of the local and international trade in South African cycads.

This free mobile app is designed to lead you through a series of interactive steps, using photographs and easily observable features, to assist you with the quick identification of cycads. The tool also includes fact sheets containing important information such as conservation status, identifying features, geographic location as well as similar-looking species. Please note that the tool is not designed to aid in identification of cycad seedlings.

The IdentifyIt Cycads app forms part of the SANBI Species Identification Tool which currently consists of 140 CITES-listed South African plant and animal species, their look-alike species as well as traded parts and derivatives.

The project is a collaboration between the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and TRAFFIC, the Wildlife Trade Monitoring Network, a strategic alliance of WWF-World Wide Fund for Nature and IUCN-The World Conservation Union. The project was sponsored by NORAD, SANBI and the Mazda Wildlife Fund.