Stichting Catalogue of Life

Catalogue of Life (COL) is a collaboration bringing together the effort and contributions of taxonomists and informaticians from around the world. COL aims to address the needs of researchers, policy-makers, environmental managers and the wider public for a consistent and up-to-date listing of all the world’s known species. COL also supports those who need to manage their own taxonomic information and species lists.

As we study and understand nature, we need ways to communicate which organisms belong to the same group. The names we give to species are a fundamental tool that allows us to refer to these units of biodiversity. Knowing the name for a species unlocks everything that has been learned about its biology, distribution and relevance to mankind. Our knowledge of the world’s species is still incomplete, but hundreds of thousands of researchers have worked over centuries to build this knowledge and assign names to the species they have recorded. Every day, taxonomists continue to publish new scientific names and refine our understanding of the world’s species.