Catalogue of Life

The Species 2000 & ITIS Catalogue of Life
Type of site
Taxonomic catalogue
Available inEnglish
URLwww.catalogueoflife.org
CommercialNo
RegistrationNot required
LaunchedJune 2001; 23 years ago (2001-06)
Current statusActive

The Catalogue of Life is an online database that provides an index of known species of animals, plants, fungi, and microorganisms. It was created in 2001 as a partnership between the global Species 2000 and the American Integrated Taxonomic Information System. The Catalogue is used by research scientists, citizen scientists, educators, and policy makers.[1] The Catalogue is also used by the Biodiversity Heritage Library, the Barcode of Life Data System, Encyclopedia of Life, and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.[2] The Catalogue currently compiles data from 165 peer-reviewed taxonomic databases that are maintained by specialist institutions around the world. As of September 2022, the COL Checklist lists 2,067,951[3] of the world's 2.2m extant species known to taxonomists on the planet at present time.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference harmon2016 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference banki2018 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ "COL". Archived from the original on 14 June 2021. Retrieved 12 June 2021.