July 09, 2025 / by Camila Plata & Olaf Bánki

Catalogue of Life 2025

The Catalogue of Life continues its mission in building the most comprehensive and authoritative list of all known species on Earth. This should serve as an essential foundation for biodiversity research, conservation, and policy. With contributions from hundreds of taxonomic experts worldwide, the Catalogue of Life 2025 includes over 2.2 million extant species. While gaps remain in some groups, this year the total number of names in the Catalogue has grown by 2%, with 48,766 newly accepted species names added.

What’s New in the 2025 catalogue?

During 2025 several global catalogs started collaborating with us. The insects are one of the key groups expanded in the Catalogue of Life 2025, in addition to Archaea, Bacteria, and crustaceans:

• AntCat – covering ants, one of the most ecologically dominant insects, essential for soil health, and ecosystem engineering.
• P. Bouchard’s 2024 classification – a major update to beetle taxonomy management, providing a modern framework for one of the planet’s most diverse and vital groups.
• Háva’s Catalogue – global coverage for selected beetle families, beginning with Derodontidae for this release and will expand to more taxa in the coming releases.
• ITIS – expanded its coverage by adding the ladybird or ladybugs beetles (Coccinellidae) list, insects well known for their role as natural pest controllers in agriculture.
• Species Files Permopsocida – global checklist for a little-known insect order related to barklice, offering insight into an ancient lineage of plant-feeding insects.
• WoRMS Mysidacea – adding information for three crustacean orders (Lophogastrida, Stygiomysida and Mysida), crucial links in aquatic food webs from plankton to fish and seabirds.
• LPSN Prokaryotic Nomenclature Up-to-Date – covering Archaea and Bacteria, key drivers of nutrient cycling and foundational to all ecosystems.

In addition, 113 existing taxonomic data sources were updated during this yearly cycle. These reflect the latest taxonomic research and expert curation across a wide range of organisms – from weevils and moths to scorpions, fishes, ferns, and marine species. Check the full details of the updated taxonomic data sources at: https://www.catalogueoflife.org/data/metadata This Catalogue of Life 2025 is published under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. It promotes open access and maximum reuse in biodiversity research, conservation, and policy. And, it aligns with global open science efforts and supports the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework’s call for accessible biodiversity data to help halt and reverse nature loss. The 2025 catalogue is openly available at: https://doi.org/10.48580/dgr6n, please use the DOI to give credit to all COL’s contributors.