Catalogue of Life

We are happy to announce that we have just published the COL Checklist 2022 online!

The COL Checklist 2022 contains well over 2 million accepted species. More than 1.9 million are living species, and the rest are extinct. A large community of taxonomists, over 500 experts globally, representing 165 data sources is underpinning this global species list. Annual releases have long term support and will not be removed, so they continue to be accessible via the API and ChecklistBank.

Check out what's new here:

Annual Release 2022 Annual release 2022 of the Catalogue of Life Checklist

New blog from the Alliance for Biodiversity Knowledge in which Olaf Bánki (Executive Secretary of Catalogue of Life) and Joe Miller (Executive Secretary of GBIF: The Global Biodiversity Information Facility) discuss our collaboration on shared infrastructure, and the search for a global species catalogue editor for the COL Checklist.
https://www.allianceforbio.org/post/your-name-here-checklistbank

Your name here: ChecklistBank seeks editor and offers new tools for taxonomy Catalogue of Life and GBIF release ChecklistBank infrastructure, announce search for new editor to assemble a semi-automated part of the COL

Do you have an interest in taxonomy and data? We have a vacancy for a global species catalogue editor!

Catalogue of Life and GBIF are working towards a more comprehensive global checklist, which can for example deliver taxonomic services for GBIF-mediated occurrences.

Check out the details about this exiting role here:

Vacancy - Global species catalogue editor Vacancy for the role of global species catalogue editor

20 years COL - Species Spotlight
Aphonopelma johnnycashi Hamilton, 2016
Animalia > Arthropoda > Arachnida > Araneae > Theraphosidae > Aphonopelma

🕷 Johnny Cash’s tarantula namesake actually looks like him!

In 2016, U.S. scientists described a new tarantula species from a location in California near Folsom Prison – a place best known from Cash’s song “Folsom Prison Blues”. The spider was aptly named after the legendary American singer-songwriter, Johnny Cash, for all the right reasons.

The “laid back” tarantula described as Aphonopelma johnnycashi got a lot of attention because of the undeniable and all too curious similarity to its famous namesake. The all-black males of the species are reminiscent of Cash’s nickname – ‘The Man in Black’.

Tarantulas have gained notoriety for their imposing appearance and perceived threat to humans, but Dr. Chris Hamilton, lead author of the research where A. johnnycashi was described, notes that the fear is largely unfounded and that the species in the United States do not readily bite, are not dangerous, and are really just "teddy bears with eight legs".

Published in : http://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.560.6264
The species is listed in the Catalogue of Life by the World Spider Catalog: https://www.catalogueoflife.org/data/taxon/FJRT

20 years COL - Species Spotlight
Rangifer tarandus (Linnaeus, 1758)
Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Theria > Artiodactyla > Cervidae > Rangifer

One of our favourite animals during this time of the year: the reindeer. Also called caribou, but these are considered to be the same genus and species. They are part of the deer family called Cervidae, which includes deer, elk, moose and wapiti.

Some scientists believe that the reindeer was one of the first domesticated animals, starting around 2,000 years ago. Currently, they are listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), because the population declined by ~40% over the past 25 years.

The species is listed in the Catalogue of Life by one of our key partners ITIS (Integrated Taxonomic Information System):
https://www.catalogueoflife.org/data/taxon/4RF6J
https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=180701
https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/29742/22167140

Wishing you all a happy Christmas, and thanks for your support this year!

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20 years COL - Species Spotlight
Chromis abyssus Pyle, Earle & Greene, 2008
Animalia > Chordata > Actinopterygii > Perciformes > Pomacentridae >Chromis

Chromis abyssus is a species of damselfish first discovered in 1997 and described in 2008. It was the first species entered into the ZooBank registry with a timestamp of 2008-01-01T00:00:02. Zoobank is the official registry for zoological nomenclature: http://zoobank.org/

The species' common name, "deep blue Chromis", refers to both the colour of this species as well as the relatively deep (>60 m) habitats where the species is found.

It is listed in the Catalogue of Life by FishBase:
https://www.catalogueoflife.org/data/taxon/5YG87
https://fishbase.mnhn.fr/summary/63552

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20 years COL - Species Spotlight
Lepidocaryum tenue Mart.
Plantae > Tracheophyta > Liliopsida > Arecales > Arecaceae > Lepidocaryum

The palm family is ecologically and economically important throughout the tropics. The fruits provide food for humans and many other vertebrates, the flowers provide pollen and nectar for countless insects, and the leaves and stems provide building materials for many cultures around the world.
The fruits of the neotropical palm Lepidocaryum tenue Mart., shown here from a photo taken at a marketplace in Mitú, Vaupés in the Colombian Amazon, are unusual for their shiny scales. Underneath is a thin layer of edible pulp. The same species is also highly valued for its leaves, which are a preferred material for thatching roofs. The genus is only found in the Amazon, but it is a close relative of the Old World raffia and rattan palms.

It is listed in the Catalogue of Life by the KEW World Checklist of Selected Plant Families: https://www.catalogueoflife.org/data/taxon/6PB75
https://wcsp.science.kew.org/namedetail.do?name_id=110826

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20 years COL - Species Spotlight
Semachrysa jade Winterton et al. 2012
Animalia > Arthropoda > Insecta > Neuroptera > Chrysopidae

This charismatic green lacewing from Malaysia highlights the importance of citizen science. It was photographed and posted online for comment by the photography and natural history communities. When the images were randomly examined by professional taxonomists it was actually discovered that this was a new species. What a great collaboration by citizen scientists and professional taxonomists! Read more: https://zookeys.pensoft.net/articles.php?id=2983

The species belongs to the Chrysopidae family, the second largest family of lacewings with more than 1200 recognised species worldwide. It is listed in the Catalogue of Life by Neuropterida Species of the World:
https://www.catalogueoflife.org/data/taxon/4WF36
https://lacewing.tamu.edu/SpeciesCatalog/Main

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20 years COL - Species Spotlight
Strepsiptera also known as “twisted-wing” parasitoids are bizarre insects with unusual morphology.

They comprise 14 families, 5 of which are extinct. Strepsiptera parasitize a broad range of hosts, encompassing Apterygota, Exopterygota and Endopterygota, belonging to 7 orders and 35 families of Insecta. Hosts include Blattodea, Diptera, Hemiptera, Hymenoptera, Mantodea, Orthoptera, and Zygentoma. In one family, the Myrmecolacidae, males and females parasitize not only hosts from different genera but from different families: males parasitize ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), and females parasitise grasshoppers (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae) and mantids (Mantodea: Mantidae). In this instance, the sexes can only be matched by molecular characterization.

Find out more about the https://www.catalogueoflife.org/data/taxon/465
Contributed by Dr Jeyaraney Kathirithamby through the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS).

We are celebrating 20 years Catalogue of Life by putting taxa in the spotlight!

Kicking off with a very special honour for one of the major contributors to COL: for the first time, a genus has been named after WoRMS: Wormsina.

Harzhauser & Landau have established the genus Wormsina for a Miocene Paratethyan Mitridae, which is devoted to WoRMS (World Register of Marine Species). Mathias Harzhauser: “We all are frequently using and consulting WoRMS and this is my contribution to make this important platform even more visible.”

The genus is available in WoRMS and MolluscaBase: https://www.molluscabase.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=1514599
and Catalogue of Life: https://www.catalogueoflife.org/data/taxon/8KTDC

The full paper is available through ZooTaxa (https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4983.1.1) & ZooBank (http://zoobank.org/References/6A4778D6-195A-4AB1-AA1E-7D8000185B28). It considers a monograph, Wormsina is on page 49.

This year, 2021, marks our 20th anniversary and it is a time to celebrate! Milestones include reaching over 2 million accepted species and the completion of the new Catalogue of Life infrastructure.
Read more on our blog: https://www.catalogueoflife.org/2021/11/04/20years

20 years Catalogue of Life This year, 2021, marks our 20th anniversary and it is a time to celebrate! Milestones include reaching over 2 million accepted species and the completion of the new Catalogue of Life infrastructure.

A new version of the COL Checklist is live! Including a new Opiliones checklist, 47 updated checklists, and improved stable identifiers. https://www.catalogueoflife.org/2021/04/14/stable-ids

COL stable identifiers Stable identifiers for the Catalogue of Life

We are so sorry to learn that Dr Daphne Fautin has passed away. A wonderful knowledgeable person and a respected scientist. Daphne was a contributor of the first hour to the Catalogue of Life project. On behalf of the COL Team and Board of Directors, our heart goes out to those she leaves behind.

Sérgio Stampar 🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷✌️ on Twitter “I have just been informed that Prof. Dr. Daphne Fautin has passed away! Probably, the biggest taxonomy name in Anthozoa in the world. She helped me several times in my beginning in Anthozoa! She left an incredible legacy with the training of several important researchers! ”

Open call to design a new logo for the World Register of Marine Species

2017 is the tenth anniversary year of WoRMS. One of the major actions planned for this year is a re-vamping of the WoRMS website. This will include a brand-new logo.

Since WoRMS is a community effort, we would like to call upon your ideas and inspiration for the creation of our new logo. As editors or as users of WoRMS, you have the greatest understanding of the content and concept of WoRMS – and we feel you are in the best position to be able to reflect this knowledge in a new (or renewed) logo.

Criteria
The Logo should be:

representative for WoRMS and its content;
preferably contain the acronym ‘WoRMS’ in some way;
simple and clear;
able to be used both “as-is” and in negative;
clear & legible, in large print format (e.g. posters), in small print format and black-white print format.


Conditions:

If selected, the designer will sign an agreement that gives the WoRMS Steering Committee (SC) the exclusive right to use and/or modify the Logo for WoRMS.
The WoRMS website will clearly acknowledge the designer of the logo; no further rights can be claimed to the logo by the designer.

The logo is preferably delivered by the deadline in EPS-format (vector, CMYK, high resolution - 300 dpi) and/or pdf-format.

Deadline: 1st June 2017

The Steering Committee will select its preferred logo from the submitted designs during their meeting on 9th June 2017, and reserves the right to not accept any logo’s offered.

The selected logo will be communicated shortly after that. The designer of the chosen logo will receive a €500 award.

You can send your creative ideas to [email protected]

Plant Diversity

All these plants are listed in Catalogue of Life - can you find them & see how they are classified?

Are you keeping up with ? 4 days already published - day 5 today. http://blogs.reading.ac.uk/crg/carrot/

Earth may be home to one trillion species: Largest-ever analysis of microbial data reveals an ecological law concluding 99.999 percent of species remain undiscovered

How big a task is completion of Catalogue of Life? One paper this year suggests we may have over a trillion species to account for! https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160502161058.htm

sciencedaily.com Earth could contain nearly 1 trillion species, with only one-thousandth of 1 percent now identified, according to a study from biologists. The estimate is based on the intersection of large datasets and universal scaling laws.

Catalogue of Life - 2016 Annual Checklist : The 2016 Annual Checklist

CoL 2016 now released! This release of the Catalogue of Life contains contributions from 158 databases with information on 1,635,250 living and 5,719 extinct species, 137,306 living and 176 extinct infraspecific taxa and also includes 1,460,644 synonyms and 405,777 common names. http://www.catalogueoflife.org/annual-checklist/2016/info/ac

catalogueoflife.org This release of the Catalogue of Life contains contributions from 158 databases with information on 1,635,250 living and 5,719 extinct species, 137,306 living and 176 extinct infraspecific taxa and also includes 1,460,644 synonyms and 405,777 common names covering the following groups:

Coming soon - Catalogue of Life Annual Checklist - due 1st April 2026: - 12 new databases plus updates from ITIS and World Plants

Catalogue of Life - 27th February 2016 : The Catalogue of Life, 27th February 2016

Current Catalogue of Life release is 27th February 2016. Many major updates including the Archaea - singled celled organisms that can be found in many extreme habitats including highly saline and very hot water. http://www.catalogueoflife.org/col/info/ac

catalogueoflife.org This release of the Catalogue of Life contains contributions from 158 databases with information on 1,634,951 living and 5,672 extinct species, 137,378 living and 176 extinct infraspecific taxa and also includes 1,455,490 synonyms and 330,688 common names covering the following groups:

Current CoL release is December 2015 - This release of the Catalogue of Life contains contributions from 157 databases with information on 1,628,227 living and 5,600 extinct species, 137,133 living and 0 extinct infraspecific taxa and also includes 1,439,464 synonyms and 330,755 common names
New in this edition includes ITIS Global: phylum Acanthocephala. ITIS data have replaced proto-GSD for Acanthocephala

How many plant species are associated with Christmas? Here are 25 to look at http://blogs.reading.ac.uk/crg/about/advent-botany-2015/

Drosera (Droseraceae) formed part of the Silver medal winning Carnivorous Plant Society stand at Chelsea Flower Show 2015 http://wp.me/p2XA7l-C4
See Droseraceae Database on Catalogue of Life for a view of the sundew family.

Catalogue of Life: Catalogue of Life 2015 - Catalogue of Life annual report summary from the...

The 2015 Annual CoL soon to be released. The executive editor gives us news of the changes. http://blog.catalogueoflife.org/2015/03/catalogue-of-life-2015-catalogue-of.html

blog.catalogueoflife.org

Over weekend we released the Catalogue of Life, 15th February. It is available at http://www.catalogueoflife.org/col/.

Thomas Kunze has done a nice job of creating proto-GSDs for Acanthocephala (adding marine species from WoRMS) and Copepoda groups (adding fresh water species from FADA). These are two new databases of this month.

We are also pleased to see the return of the FishBase common names.

The Catalogue of Life, 30th January 2015 is online now at http://www.catalogueoflife.org/col/.

One new database joined the CoL: DermapteraSF from Species Files cluster (http://www.catalogueoflife.org/col/details/database/id/158).

Another 9 Species File databases, FishBase, World Ferns and 31 automated WoRMS checklists have been updated in this month.

Now we have first batch of extinct taxa in the Catalogue, which came with Species File checklists.

Catalogue of Life - 29th October 2014 :: Search all names

Today we released Catalogue of Life, 24th November 2014 at http://www.catalogueoflife.org/col/.

In this month we reached 1.6M species milestone. It means, 2015 Annual Checklist will legally have this figure on its front page. Congratulations to all and many thanks to authors of databases, who make it possible!

catalogueoflife.org

University of Reading scientists hand over unique list of more than 1.4 million species to Dutch...

A year ago the University of Reading was busy managing the hand over of Catalogue of Life to Naturalis. The Catalogue was hosted at Reading for 15 years but now will be hosted on a 5-yearly cycle by major institutions based on competitive bid. The first step has been successful with Naturalis taking on and improving the infrastructure of the Catalogue. However there still remains a lot of work to be completed. http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/local-news/university-reading-scientists-hand-over-6323483
Before completion of the handover the Catalogue had already grown a further 100k species to over 1.5 million thanks to the outputs of i4Life and the hard work of the remaining team at Reading including Dr Yuri Roskov and Ms Becky Mann working alongside Dr Alastair Culham.

getreading.co.uk The data has now been complied into a 'dictionary' which will be used by experts around the world

L'Oreal Scholar studies DNA barcodes of arid land flora

Fabaceae in Nigerian drylands get attention by DNA barcoder. Catalogue of Life covers all Fabaceae species in the ILDIS database edited by Dr Yuri Roskov.

blogs.reading.ac.uk I am a visiting (ad hoc) research student at the University of Reading; my research is on the evaluation and exploration of the biodiversity of arid-land Fabaceae in Nigeria funded by the Competiti...

Especially for Halloween - the Bat Flower, Tacca chantrieri, Dioscoreaceae found in the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families.

Halloween herbarium specimen - the bat flower, Tacca chantrieri - shockingly strange in real life! Weird enough as a dried specimen.

Catalogue of Life - 19th September 2014 :: Species details

We have only one species of Rhachistia in Catalogue of Life at present: R. histrio (http://www.catalogueoflife.org/col/details/species/id/1917/source/tree) provided by the Australian Faunal Directory (Pulmonata). Molluscs are one of the areas that CoL has been steadily improving, and many were added during the i4Life project (www.i4life.eu). A species from the Seychelles hit the news recently due to its reappearance after being reported extinct in 2007. Rhachistia aldabrae listed in the IUCN Red List was rediscovered on 23rd August 2014 on the Aldabra Atoll. For a full report see IUCN's web pages: http://www.iucnredlist.org/news/extinct-snail-re-discovered-in-seychelles. The issue of whether to list things no longer alive has been the source of debate among CoL scientists.

catalogueoflife.org