New 2008 Annual Checklist of the Catalogue of Life will be launched on 1st April 2008 in the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. The eighth edition of the Annual Checklist (AC08) contains 1,105,589 species of animals, plants, fungi, micro-organisms and viruses. Species checklists have been contributed by 52 taxonomic databases from around the world.  

Five new databases joined the project this year:

• BSF: Blattodea Species File Online by George Beccaloni (UK),
• COOL: Cercopoidea Organised On Line by Adeline Soulier-Perkins (France),
• Eumycetozoa.com: Nomenclatural Database of Eumycetozoa (Myxomycota) by Carlos Lado (Spain),
• PSF: Phasmida Species File by Paul Brock (UK/USA) and
• Global Taxonomic Database of Gracillariidae by Jurate and Willy De Prins (Belgium)

Among significant contributions of this year:

• global checklists of almost all monocots families from Royal Botanic Gardens Kew World Checklist of Selected Plant Families.
• Smaller Arachnid Orders by MS Harvey, World Oribatida Catalog by L Subías, and platygastrid wasps by NF Johnson, as a part of The Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS).

 

Unique Life Science Identifiers (LSIDs) have been introduced for every recognised taxon in the 2008 Annual Checklist.