Download
Current and historical versions of the Catalogue of Life
The Catalogue of Life version 2024-10-22
You can download the current version of the entire Catalogue of Life here:
Please read the information on the available formats if you are unlcear which one to use. For versions from previous months, please visit the COL downloads site. ChecklistBank also offers partial downloads if you are only interested in a certain group of the checklist. Please note that this requires a free GBIF user account.
Historical versions of the Catalogue of Life
The Catalogue of Life has been released each year since 2000 (excluding 2001 and 2020). Every year, COL produces an annual version of the Catalogue of Life that receives long-term support and becomes part of the yearly archives. Monthly Catalogue of Lifes released between annual editions may not be kept indefinitely. These lose support once an annual Catalogue of Life is issued.
The following links give access to historical versions of the Catalogue of Life for each year from 2005 to 2019. MySQL dump files can be downloaded for each version from 2005 to 2019 and Darwin Core Archive ZIP files from 2012 to 2019. Since 2021 each release is available in 3 formats and kept for online access in Catalogue of Life Bank.
- Catalogue of Life 2024 - 2,025,351 living and 147,120 extinct species (ColDP, Darwin Core Archive, TextTree)
- Catalogue of Life 2023 - 1,827,305 living and 132,309 extinct species (ColDP, Darwin Core Archive, TextTree)
- Catalogue of Life 2022 - 1,726,835 living and 110,790 extinct species (ColDP, Darwin Core Archive, TextTree)
- Catalogue of Life 2021 - 1,898,157 living and 110,790 extinct species (ColDP, Darwin Core Archive, ACEF, TextTree)
- Catalogue of Life 2019 - 1,837,565 living and 63,419 extinct species (Darwin Core Archive, MySQL)
- Catalogue of Life 2018 - 1,744,204 living and 59,284 extinct species (Darwin Core Archive, MySQL)
- Catalogue of Life 2017 - 1,664,506 living and 49,346 extinct species (Darwin Core Archive, MySQL)
- Catalogue of Life 2016 - 1,635,250 living and 5,719 extinct species (Darwin Core Archive, MySQL)
- Catalogue of Life 2015 - 1,606,554 species (Darwin Core Archive, MySQL)
- Catalogue of Life 2014 - 1,578,063 species (Darwin Core Archive, MySQL)
- Catalogue of Life 2013 - 1,352,112 species (Darwin Core Archive, MySQL)
- Catalogue of Life 2012 - 1,404,038 species (Darwin Core Archive, MySQL)
- Catalogue of Life 2011 - 1,347,224 species (MySQL)
- Catalogue of Life 2010 - 1,257,735 species (MySQL)
- Catalogue of Life 2009 - 1,160,711 species (MySQL)
- Catalogue of Life 2008 - 1,105,589 species (MySQL)
- Catalogue of Life 2007 - 1,008,965 species (MySQL)
- Catalogue of Life 2006 - 884,000 species (MySQL)
- Catalogue of Life 2005 - 527,000 species (MySQL)
- Catalogue of Life 2004 - 323,000 species
- Catalogue of Life 2003 - 304,000 species
- Catalogue of Life 2002 - 260,000 species
- Catalogue of Life 2000 - 220,000 species
Historical versions of the monthly Catalogue of Life editions
The Catalogue of Life is updated throughout the year and snapshots are also available for many months from 2017 to the present. Changes in infrastructure have disrupted this series so some intervals are longer than monthly.