World Wildlife Fund

WildFinder helps you find where wildlife live. You can search by place to see what species live there, search by species to see where they live, or select and print a quick-map of global diversity patterns.

WildFinder's map-driven, searchable database of species distributions is based on WWF's terrestrial ecoregions, large geographic areas defined by environmental conditions and the plants and animals that live there.

WildFinder currently includes information for four large taxa: amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. The information on these species and their distributions comes from published sources, such as field guides and species accounts, and from unpublished sources such as compiled museum records or directly from experts. (See the Acknowledgements for more details). Science is constantly revealing new information about the world around us, so as data on these and other taxa become available, we will add them to WildFinder.

WWF created WildFinder because successful, science-based conservation depends on good information. Conservationists can use WildFinder to help target their efforts worldwide. Scientists can use these data to study and understand global patterns of species diversity. Teachers can build curricula around WildFinder. Students can use it on their own to learn more about a particular ecoregion or species. Nature enthusiasts can use WildFinder to get a list of species from an ecoregion they plan to visit. We welcome all feedback from these and other users; please contact us at wildfinder@wwfus.org.

Need to know more?
Please see Detailed Description of the WildFinder Database.

Citation information:
Information from this website should be cited as:

World Wildlife Fund. 2006. WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. Jan-06. www.worldwildlife.org/WildFinder

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the all of the people who have made this effort possible: Within WWF:

• Idea for WildFinder: Eric Dinerstein and David Olson
• Scientific coordination: John Lamoreux, John Morrison, Taylor Ricketts, and Wesley Wettengel
• Database and web coordination: Wesley Wettengel
• Database programmer: Greg Brennan
• Chief of contracts (and expert with contacts): Meseret Taye
• Data acquisition and entry: Tom Allnutt, Christine Burdette, Neil Burgess, Lauriane Cayet, Jennifer D'Amico Hales, Eric Dinerstein, Karen Ernst, John Lamoreux, Colby Loucks, Meghan McKnight, John Morrison, David Olson, Susan Palminteri, Jolie Patterson, Taylor Ricketts, Erika Schaub, Jan Schipper, Holly Strand, Dawn Turney, Emma Underwood, Wesley Wettengel

Allen Allison, Steven Anderson, Lucy Aquino, Teresa Ávila-Pires, Pamela Beresford, Donald Broadley, Rafe Brown, Jonathan Campbell, Fernando Castro, Ed Colijn, Luis Coloma, Ronald Crombie, Indraneil Das, Ignacio de La Riva, Arvin Diesmos, William Duellman, Michael Evans, Lee Fitzgerald, Jon Fjeldså, J. Ramon Formas, Darrel Frost, Steffan Galster, Angus Gascoigne, Taran Grant, Myroula Hadjichristoforou, Louis Hansen, Ron Heyer, Robert Hoffmann, Marinus Hoogmoed, Roberto Ibanez, Javier Icochea, Djoko Iskandar, Nelson Jorge da Silva, Gunther Köhler, Cengiz Kurtonur, Enrique La Marca, José Langone, Esteban Lavilla, Fernando Lobo, Stefan Lötters, Steve Madge, Otavio Marques, Marcio Martins, James McCranie, Roy McDiarmid, Ricardo Montero, Juan Carlos Ortiz, John Pilgrim, Gabriel Pinto, Carsten Rahbek, Steffen Reichle, Enrique Richard, Gordon Rodda, Jay Savage, Norman Scott, Gustavo Scrocchi, Weston Sechrest, Simon Stuart, Robert Tizard, Peter Uetz, Peter Paul van Dijk, Oscar Flores Villela, Larry David Wilson, Yan Xie, Alberto Yanosky, Er-mi Zhao, George Zug

Special thanks to:
The Species Survival Commission (SSC) of IUCN - The World Conservation Union

Particularly to the Red List Programme of SSC

And to the Global Amphibian Assessment and Global Mammal Assessment, both are joint ventures of SSC & the Center for Applied Biodiversity Science at Conservation International, see:

• http://www.globalamphibians.org/
• http://www.iucn.org/themes/ssc/programs/gma/
• http://www.biodiversityscience.org/xp/CABS/home
• Wings of the Americas of The Nature Conservancy

References for this page
Lamoreux, J. F., J. C. Morrison, T. H. Ricketts, D. M. Olson, E. Dinerstein, M. W. McKnight, and H. H. Shugart. 2006. Global tests of biodiversity concordance and the importance of endemism. Nature 440:212-214.

Olson, D. M., E. Dinerstein, E. D. Wikramanayake, N. D. Burgess, G. V. N. Powell, E. C. Underwood, J. A. D'Amico, I. Itoua, H. E. Strand, J. C. Morrison, C. J. Loucks, T. F. Allnutt, T. H. Ricketts, Y. Kura, J. F. Lamoreux, W. W. Wettengel, P. Hedao, and K. R. Kassem. 2001. Terrestrial ecoregions of the world: a new map of life on Earth. BioScience 51:933-938.

Use Limitation:
Data from this website are available for use for valid scientific, conservation, and educational purposes, as long as the datasource is acknowledged (see suggested citation). To download the results of an individual query, click on the "Export" button below the query results. To download the entire dataset please go to our data download page.

Contact us:
WildFinder is a dynamic repository on species information, and will be updated as new information becomes available. We welcome all feedback on the website, suggestions for additional data sources, and corrections to the existing database. Please contact us at wildfinder@wwfus.org.