What is EOL?

Welcome to the first release of the Encyclopedia of Life portal. This is the very beginning of our exciting journey to document all species of life on Earth.

Comprehensive, collaborative, ever-growing, and personalized, the Encyclopedia of Life is an ecosystem of websites that makes all key information about all life on Earth accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world. Our goals are to:

• Create a constantly evolving encyclopedia that lives on the Internet, with contributions from scientists and amateurs alike.
• Transform the science of biology, and inspire a new generation of scientists, by aggregating virtually all known data about every living species.
• Engage a wide audience of schoolchildren, educators, citizen scientists, academics and those who are just curious about Earth's species.
• Increase our collective understanding of life on Earth, and safeguard the richest possible spectrum of biodiversity.

In this first version of the portal, you will find:

• About 25 exemplar species pages. These pages show the kind of rich environment, with extensive information, to which all the species pages will eventually grow. These pages have been authenticated (endorsed) by scientists.
• Tens of thousands of additional species pages. These pages are authenticated, but do not contain the rich array of information found on the exemplar pages.
• About 1 million minimal species pages contain the scientific and common names for a species and often have a distribution map, but lack other authenticated information.

We thank our many data partners who are making EOL possible by contributing their information.

New To The Site?

• Video Tour
• Frequently Asked Questions

Help Us

EOL is an unprecedented global effort and we want you to be a part of it. Natural history museums, botanical gardens, other research institutions, and dedicated individuals are working to create the most complete biodiversity database on the Web, but without your help it cannot be done. Here are some ways in which you can become involved:

• Become a curator for a species page. Volunteer to be the curator (authenticator) for one or more of the minimal species pages. To do so, click here and send us your name, institutional affiliation, and the name(s) of the page(s) you would like to curate.
• Provide content. Later in 2008 we will set up a mechanism for anyone to contribute species-related content (photos, drawings, text, video, etc.). The curator(s) of the species will consider the submissions for incorporation into the authenticated species page.
• Become a donor to the EOL. While initial funding for the EOL has been secured, additional resources are needed. We invite you to make a donation to EOL by clicking on the button below.
  

Featured

Theobroma cacao L. Cacao

Popular

	Nicrophorus americanus Olivier American burying beetle
	Gadus morhua Linnaeus, 1758 Atlantic cod
	Cafeteria roenbergensis Fenchel & D.J. Patterson
	Aedes aegypti (Linnaeus, 1762) Yellow fever mosquito
	Falco peregrinus Tunstall, 1771 Peregrine falcon