Main Page

Welcome to Wikispecies The free species directory that anyone can edit. It covers Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, Bacteria, Archaea, Protista and all other forms of life. So far we have 325,851 articles Wikispecies is free, because life is in the public domain!

Taxon Navigation Superregnum Archaea Superregnum Bacteria Superregnum Eukaryota Regnum Protista Regnum Fungi Regnum Plantae Regnum Animalia Virus (classification still unclear)

Strobilurus esculentus	Pinus radiata	Oreochromis tanganicae	Tulipa agenensis	Boselaphus tragocamelus

Explore Wikispecies HELP Section -- Detailed information on creating pages. Taxonomy -- Information on the Linnaean classification of species. Village Pump -- Discuss the project. Done and To Do -- See references to very detailed areas and defined future targets Wikispecies FAQ -- Check replies to common concerns. Image Guidelines -- Our recommendation on where to upload illustrations Wikispecies PR -- Help us by spreading the word of Wikispecies Collaboration with ZooKeys A collaboration between Wikispecies and ZooKeys has been announced. PhytoKeys also joined the collaboration in November 2010. Images of species from ZooKeys and PhytoKeys will be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons and used in Wikispecies. Distinguished Author José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage   (1823-1907). A Portuguese zoologist and politician. He was the curator of Zoology at the Museum of Natural History in Lisbon. His work at the Museum consisted in acquiring, describing and coordinating collections, many of which arrived from the Portuguese colonies in Africa, such as Angola, Mozambique, etc. He published more than 200 taxonomic papers on mammals, birds, and fishes. In the 1880s he became the Minister of the Navy and later the Minister for Foreign Affairs for Portugal. The zoology collection at the Lisbon Museum is called the Bocage Museum in his honor. He was responsible for identifying many new species, which he named according to the naturalist who found them.

Species of the week Queen of the Andes Puya raimondii Puya raimondii Some facts on this plant: Height of vegetative growth: Up to 3 m. Height of flower cluster: Up to 10 m. Range: Endemic to the high Andes of Bolivia and Peru. Habitat: High mountains at an elevation of 3200–4800 m. Conservation status: Endangered (IUCN 3.1). First described: By the Italian botanist Antonio Raimondi, and later renamed in his honor by the German taxonomist Hermann Harms in 1928. Puya raimondii isn't satisfied with producing one or two flowers. No, it makes an abundance of 10,000 flowers which result in an overwhelming 6,000,000 seeds. It is the largest member of the Bromeliad family, Bromeliaceae, which contains more than 3,000 species. To grow such a gigantic inflorescence Puya raimondii needs a very long time; it takes this plant 80 to 150 years to reach maturity and come into bloom. Unfortunately, it blossoms only once and the plant dies soon after the fruits ripen. That’s why this species is endangered in the wild with a small population. Puya raimondii is pollinated by bats and large insects.

Wikispecies is run by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, which operates several other multilingual and free-content projects: Meta-Wiki Coordination of all Wikimedia projects Wikipedia The free encyclopedia Commons Shared media repository Wikibooks Free textbooks and manuals Wikiquote Collection of quotations Wiktionary Dictionary and thesaurus Wikisource The free library Wikinews Free content news source Wikiversity Free content learning materials