Encyclopedia of Life

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Credit: Encyclopedia of Life

The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) was established to make comprehensive, authenticated information about the world’s biodiversity freely available over the Internet. Encyclopedia of Life’s portal includes hundreds of thousands of authenticated species pages, 1.4 million base pages and links to 13 million pages of digitized biodiversity literature. The features available on the EOL portal make participation possible by everyone. Users including students, scientists and members of the public can contribute photos and videos via the EOL Flickr Group, apply tags to images and provide comments on the content.

The EOL provides an engaging and informative learning platform where students and others can work together to help build this global resource and learn about biological diversity worldwide.

Collaborator Contributions

A white, elongated, and whorled wentletrap shell, seen from two angles.

Sanibel Island Shells: One Species at a Time

Ari Daniel Shapiro is joined for this episode of One Species at a Time by serious beachcombers along the high-tide line of Sanibel Island, Florida. These “shellers” come in search of beautiful sea shells, sometimes no bigger than a grain of rice, that are the remains of marine snails, bivalves, and other mollusks.

Greenland Shark: One Species at a Time

Scientists know the Greenland shark (Somniosus microcephalus) moves slowly in the Arctic's cold water. They also know that parasites attack the shark's eyes. But much about this animal remains a mystery. Marine biologist Greg Skomal says that's because the Greenland shark spends most of the year living under 6 feet of Arctic ice. Skomal works for the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries.

A photo of the cliffs at Mistaken Point, in Newfoundland

Ediacaran Fossils: One Species at a Time

When the cod fishery collapsed in Newfoundland in the early 1990s, the hopes of the local fish harvesters collapsed with it. Hundreds of Newfoundlanders moved away and businesses that depended on the cod fishery closed. But retired schoolteacher Kit Ward of Portugal Cove South wasn’t content to watch her community vanish. She and some friends found a solution that was right under their feet, in the reddish rocks of Mistaken Point.

Chinook Salmon: One Species at a Time

Can painted wooden fish on a schoolyard fence change human behavior and help clean up the ocean for the real salmon? Stream of Dreams in British Columbia thinks so, and a lot of wooden fish and some 100,000 school kids later, they have some intriguing results to show for their effort.

Elysia chlorotica, the photosynthesizing sea slug.

Sea Slugs: One Species at a Time

Come one, come all! See the amazing, the astonishing, half-animal, half-plant! Journey to Tampa Bay, Florida, where scientist Skip Pierce and one of his students first made a remarkable discovery twenty years ago. Meet Elysia chlorotica, a bright green, solar-powered, algae-slurping sea slug that’s still turning our understanding of the classification of life upside down.

Polar Bears: One Species at a Time

The Encyclopedia of Life and Atlantic Public Media bring us another installment of the podcast, One Species at a Time. In this podcast, host Ari Daniel Shapiro relates two close calls with polar bears. Listen as Heather Cray recalls how, dumped by a storm on a small Arctic island, she got an unexpected wake-up call.

Red Paper Lantern Jellyfish: One Species at a Time

The Encyclopedia of Life and Atlantic Public Media bring us a new installment of the podcast, One Species at a Time. Vacuumed up from its habitat a mile down in the ocean, the red paper lantern jelly may not look like much. Mostly water, it’s so fragile that once brought to the surface it’s reduced to a tattered blob in a jar. But this unassuming jellyfish has lessons for scientists.

a bowhead whale and her calf, seen from above

Bowhead Whale: One Species at a Time

In the episode of One Species at a Time, writer Karen Romano Young takes an icebreaker to Barrow, Alaska, to join in the festival of Naluqatak and learn about the intimate relationship between the Inupiat Eskimos and the bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus). Listen as she tells Ari Daniel Shapiro how the whole community turns out for whale hunt, how the bowhead nourishes the Inupiat, both physically and spiritually—and how the hunt is proving to be an unexpected gift to scientists.

Caribbean boulder star coral (Montastrea cavernosa)

Star of the Reef: One Species at a Time

Each month, the Naked Oceans podcast invites a leading marine researcher to pick the "critter of the month" by asking: if you were a marine organism, which one would you be? This month, Dr. Nancy Knowlton, the Sant Chair for Marine Science at NMNH makes her pick: the Caribbean boulder star coral (Montastrea cavernosa). Catch to the full podcast (and more episodes) on the Naked Oceans website.

a marine iguana, Amblyrhynchus cristatus

Marine Iguanas: One Species at a Time

No iguana wants to be cooked alive on a hot rock and then served up as dinner for a Galapagos hawk. But it turns out the marine iguanas (Amblyrhynchus cristatus) have a strategy that warns them of the presence of hawks they can’t see. They learned to tune in to a kind of police scanner…the alarm calls of mockingbirds.

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