Data sources

Phylodex names and sorts species with open biodiversity data. Here is each source, cited as it asks to be, with its licence. Using their data doesn’t mean any of them endorses Phylodex.

Birds

Names, taxonomy and order. Clements, J. F., P. C. Rasmussen, T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, A. Spencer, S. M. Billerman, B. L. Sullivan, M. Smith, and C. L. Wood. 2025. The eBird/Clements checklist of Birds of the World: v2025. Downloaded from birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist.

All other species

Names and taxonomy of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, insects, plants, fungi and every other group. Bánki, O., Roskov, Y., Döring, M., Ower, G., Hernández Robles, D. R., Plata Corredor, C. A., Stjernegaard Jeppesen, T., Örn, A., Pape, T., Hobern, D., Garnett, S., Little, H., DeWalt, R. E., Miller, J., Orrell, T., Aalbu, R., Abbott, J., Abreu, C., Acero P, A., et al. (2026). Catalogue of Life (2026-09-25 XR). Catalogue of Life Foundation, Amsterdam, Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.48580/dgz9s. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Changes. Phylodex uses the accepted species and their English common names, leaves out birds (named by eBird/Clements above), and may edit a name. The Catalogue of Life notes that it cannot guarantee its data is accurate or complete.

Which species are included, and how search ranks them

GBIF.org (7 October 2026) GBIF Occurrence Download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.cef28t. Photo and video observations from the hundreds of datasets published through GBIF.org; the download’s page lists each one and its licence. Phylodex uses only how many records each species has.

Mammal, reptile and amphibian lists by region

What’s recorded in a region. Built from photo and video observations published through GBIF.org.

Which species are introduced. The Global Register of Introduced and Invasive Species (GRIIS), from the IUCN SSC Invasive Species Specialist Group. Each country’s list is cited with its authors, version, licence (most are CC BY 4.0) and DOI on GBIF.org; Phylodex uses only which species each lists. In the United States: Simpson, A., Sellers, E., and Pagad, S. (2022). Global Register of Introduced and Invasive Species – United States (Contiguous), Alaska and Hawaii, ver. 2.0. Invasive Species Specialist Group and U.S. Geological Survey. https://doi.org/10.5066/p9kfftod. And U.S. Geological Survey. 2026. Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Database. Gainesville, Florida. nas.er.usgs.gov, in the public domain; its data are provisional.

Places

Place names are looked up with Mapbox: © Mapbox, © OpenStreetMap.

Species descriptions

Each description is adapted (summarised and reworded) from the species’ article on English Wikipedia, and checked before it’s shown. The articles are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, and so are the descriptions: they may be reused under the same licence. Each article is listed, with a link, on Description sources.

Hawaiian names

Pukui, M. K., and Elbert, S. H. (1986). Hawaiian Dictionary, revised and enlarged edition. University of Hawaiʻi Press. Hawaii Audubon Society (2020). Hawaii’s Birds, 7th edition.

iNaturalist

A photo’s iNaturalist link opens its observation on iNaturalist.org.