The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL), a free, online collaborative tool, is expanded in its second edition released today, offering information on more than one-third of all known species on Earth.

EOLv2  has 20 times as many pages as when the EOL.org first launched in 2008 - 700,000 today. The global partnership of 170 content providers behind EOL.org wants to build a site with 1.9 million pages, one for every species known to science. 

With the new interface, users can more easily find species of interest, create personal virtual collections of photos and information, find or upload pictures, videos and sounds and share comments, questions and expertise with users worldwide who share similar interests. 

A global community of over 700 'curators' review and approve content to be displayed in the portal. 

"EOL.org Version 2 will effect an extraordinary expansion of the Encyclopedia of Life, opening its vast and growing storehouse of knowledge to a much larger range of users, including medicine, biotechnology, ecology, and now increasingly the general public," said Harvard University biologist Dr. Edward O. Wilson, one of the driving forces behind the formation of the EOL.

EOL is supported by founding sponsors the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Additional support comes from EOL member institutions and donations from around the world.