WoRMS - World Register of Marine Species

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Statistics

185,270 valid species; of which 144,246 checked (78%)
284,537 species names including synonyms
351,564 taxa (infraspecies to kingdoms)
12,389 images
In the light of the 300th birthday of Linnaeus, we reached our target of 100,000 valid species names by the end of 2007. The final goal is to capture all of the estimated 230,000 marine species by 2010, in synchrony with the completion of the Census of Marine Life programme, still 44,730 to go.

About WoRMS

With WoRMS we aim to provide the most authoritative list of names of all marine species globally, ever published.

WoRMS is a contribution to the Catalogue of Life, the Encyclopedia of Life, and will serve as the taxonomic backbone of the Ocean Biogeographic Information System.
WoRMS has been accepted as one of the four campaigns organised by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.
Read more...

News

NEW Littoral myriapods website
Added on: 2010-07-20 16:00:00 by Barber, Tony

Centipedes and millipedes seem unlikely animals to find on seashores but in fact there are several species of millipede and more than forty centipedes (notably the geophilomorphs or “wire centipedes”) that are known from around high water or below on beaches around the world and there are certainly other species to be recorded from such sites. ... [Read more]

New version of taxon match online
Added on: 2010-07-19 12:55:00 by Appeltans, Ward

VLIZ has implemented a more powerful semi-automated tool to cross-check species lists against the WoRMS database (called Aphia). Click on Match taxa in the menu. You can upload a list of species names and the system will return your file matched with the species names in WoRMS. It notifies when the name is an unaccepted synonym, if the spelling is not exact (phonetic or near matches), the authority and publication date, the hierarchical classification, quality status (expert validated or not), the persistent WoRMS LSID and citation for each name. When there are multiple matches the system provides a pick-list. ... [Read more]

The International Institute of Species Exploration reports 1,922,710 living species on Earth.
Added on: 2010-05-26 15:30:00 by Appeltans, Ward

Their 2010 annual report "State of Observed Species (SOS)" makes on overview of nearly two million species of which one million are insects. In 2008, 18,225 living species and 2,140 animal fossil species were described as new to science. WoRMS is now an official data partner. [Read more]

WoRMS collaborating with the Census of Marine Life
Added on: 2010-02-03 16:53:00 by Mark Costello, Ward Appeltans

The World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) is pleased to announce funding from the Census of Marine Life (CoML) Synthesis group at Memorial University to help complete draft species lists for gaps in taxon coverage in WoRMS. ... [Read more]

WoRMS participates in the Global Names Index initiative
Added on: 2009-11-06 12:42:00 by Costello, Mark

WoRMS is contributing to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and the development of international biodiversity informatics science through participating in the Global Names Index (GNI) initiative (www.globalnames.org). ... [Read more]

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Download database

We see the web interface as the main means of access to information in the Aphia database. However, in some cases this web interface might be too limited, especially for those building off-line applications. If you want to get an electronic copy of the Aphia database, please fill in and send us the request form.

Only editors associated to WoRMS can download the results of a search query in a tab delimited or Excel file, when logged on.

Supporters

Citation

We encourage to cite the individual global or regional species lists that are often the source of the data, but you can also refer to us as follows:

Appeltans W, Bouchet P, Boxshall GA, Fauchald K, Gordon DP, Hoeksema BW, Poore GCB, van Soest RWM, Stöhr S, Walter TC, Costello MJ. (eds) (2010). World Register of Marine Species. Accessed at http://www.marinespecies.org on [yyyy-mm-dd].

Disclaimer

The editorial board maintains this register, but is aware that it is not complete and undoubtedly contains errors. The board cannot be made responsible for any errors or misuse of data contained in this register. Comments from our users are more than welcome, so if you come across any error or incomplete information or you are willing to contribute to this initiative please contact us at info@marinespecies.org.