Catalogue of Life

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,^[update] 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.

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^ "COL". Archived from the original on 14 June 2021. Retrieved 12 June 2021.