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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 317,723 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)

Aptenodytes patagonicus patagonicus	Alstroemeria aurea	Sepioteuthis lessoniana	Dendrobates tinctorius	Ramaria flaccida

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 Asian Weaver Ant Oecophylla smaragdina Oecophylla smaragdina Some facts on this ant: Length: 5 to 10mm. Range: Southern India, southeast Asia, and Australia. Habitat: Found in tropical forests. Diet: Mainly small insects. Colony size: More than half a million workers. Conservation status: Not threatened. First described: By the Danish entomologist Johan Christian Fabricius in 1775 as Camponotus smaragdinus. Placed in the genus Oecophylla by the English entomologist Frederick Smith in 1860. Did you ever see thousands of weavers working together in the same place on the same product? If not, you didn't come across Oecophylla smaragdina. These ants build their nests by stitching living tree and shrub leaves together with silk produced by special glands in their larvae. Workers pull the leaves together in position while their comrades bring larvae and gently squeeze them to stimulate silk production. The silk binds the leaves into a nest which can contain up to dozens of leaves. This provides a well camouflaged shelter. Colonies can be extremely large consisting of more than a hundred of these nests spanning numerous trees. The weaver ants are highly territorial and workers aggressively defend their territories against intruders. The genus Oecophylla contains two extant species, the other one being the African Oecophylla longinoda. They belong to the family Formicidae or ants which has 12,500 described species.

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