Search tips

The Dynamic Checklist of the Catalogue of Life allows you to search for scientific species names. A variety of online species databases are searched simultaneously. When the search has been completed, the species names that were found are listed.

To search through all the species databases that are currently connected to the Dynamic Checklist, type in your search string and choose whether you want to search the Global Checklist, a Regional Checklist or the Combined Checklists. Then click on the Search button (or press Enter).

You can use an * (asterisk) as a "wild card" character in your search string. A search string may contain one or several of these wild cards.

The Dynamic Checklist will now look for your search string in any genus name or specific epithet, and present the search results to you in alphabetical order.

To navigate through the search results, use the page numbers and Next and Previous links along the bottom of the search results page. You can change the number of results shown per page by entering a different number into the box in the top right corner of the page and then clicking on Update (or pressing Enter).