Launch of Encyclopedia of Life

The Encyclopedia of Life is an online project that aims to provide a page for every known species on Earth, collecting information from scientists, institutions and the public. It grew out of a proposal by the biologist E. O. Wilson, who called in a 2007 talk for a resource that would make biodiversity knowledge freely available. It was launched with funding from the MacArthur and Sloan foundations and with partners such as the Smithsonian Institution, Harvard University, the Natural History Museum in London and the Field Museum. Species pages combine text, images, maps and data from many sources, including taxonomic databases. The project has helped to make scientific data on living things easier to find and reuse.

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