Welcome to IdentifyLife
IdentifyLife is a worldwide collaborative initiative dedicated to the identification and classification of living organisms.
By indexing and providing access to identification keys, taxonomic literature, and biological resources from across the World Wide Web, IdentifyLife supports accurate, reproducible, and standardized organism identification across all domains of life.
Why Organism Identification Matters
Accurate identification of organisms is fundamental to:
biological and ecological research
biodiversity assessment and monitoring
conservation and environmental management
bioinformatics and data integration
Correct names link organisms to scientific knowledge, ecological roles, genetic data, and conservation status.
Without reliable identification, biological data lose meaning and interoperability.
Biodiversity and the Diversity of Life
Biodiversity encompasses the variety of life on Earth at three interconnected levels:
Genetic diversity: variation within species
Species diversity: variation between species
Ecosystem diversity: variation among habitats and ecological communities
IdentifyLife is designed to help users explore this diversity by connecting organisms to structured identification tools and authoritative biological information.
Taxonomic Coverage
IdentifyLife embraces the full diversity of life, including prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms, reflecting modern biological classification systems.
Taxonomic coverage refers to the breadth of species, genera, and higher ranks documented through identification efforts and is essential for building comprehensive biodiversity inventories.
Estimates suggest that Earth hosts approximately 8.7 million eukaryotic species, with the majority still undescribed.
Identification platforms play a critical role in closing this knowledge gap.
Identification Tools and Approaches
IdentifyLife brings together multiple complementary approaches to organism identification:
Morphological identification keys based on diagnostic characters
Taxonomic descriptions and nomenclature
Molecular methods, including DNA barcoding and reference databases
Phylogenetic context, linking organisms within the Tree of Life
By integrating classical taxonomy with modern biological data, IdentifyLife supports robust and scientifically grounded identification.
Connecting People and Knowledge
IdentifyLife serves as a bridge between:
researchers and taxonomic experts
educators and students
citizen scientists and biodiversity observers
By making identification resources discoverable and interconnected, IdentifyLife helps transform observations into validated biological knowledge.