ChecklistBank sorts every name into one of 37 broad taxonomic groups, which lets you filter tens of thousands of datasets by the organisms they cover. The groups now have new public domain icons from PhyloPic, served directly by the API.
Publication of COL Annual release moved to December.
A new R package, rcol, brings Catalogue of Life name matching, taxon and dataset lookups, tree navigation and the ChecklistBank parsers straight into R — modelled on rgbif and taxadb.
Catalogue of Life is the main taxonomic reference for GBIF
The new taxon distribution map draws structured distributions and an optional GBIF occurrence overlay. Here is how the col-gazetteers project underpins it — and how to publish distributions that the map can actually draw.
The col-browser ReactJS components have moved to React 19 and a fully controlled API. Pin to v1 to keep your pages working, or upgrade to the more flexible v2.
A free Catalogue of Life iPhone app is now available on the App Store — browse, search and explore the full COL checklist from your pocket.
© 2026, Catalogue of Life.
Unless otherwise indicated, all other content offered under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.