Wikispecies facts for kids
Wikispecies is a sister project of Wikipedia, and so it is a wiki supported by the Wikimedia Foundation. It is a free directory of species that wants to make a full catalogue of all living things. It tells of how species are classified into groups (taxonomy), and how those groups are similar to one another. It calls itself the "directory of life".
It is supposed to be written and used by scientists, not by normal people. The people who write Wikispecies do not need to show their education but need to show their general understanding in the area.
It was started in August 2004, with biologists around the world invited to help. Now, the project has become a good directory listing the Linnaean taxonomy with links to Wikipedia articles on individual species since April 2005. The links are provided in different languages.
The articles in Wikispecies are all written in the Latin names, so that scientists around the world, no matter what language that use, can use the website. There is information in the article telling people what the article's living thing is called in every other language that has a common name for it. Still, Wikispecies is mostly in English; its main page is in English, and it is run in English.
The taxoboxes in Wikipedia come from Wikispecies, where people in Wikipedia can go to refer.
As of July 1, 2014, Wikispecies has over 400,000 articles.
See also
In Spanish: Wikispecies para niños
