Hi Everyone!

Have you heard about this terrific interactive tree of life called OneZoom? It took scientists James Rosindell, a biodiversity researcher at Imperial College London, and Yan Wong, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Oxford, ten years to create this tree connecting 2.2 million living species in graphical format.

Instead of just placing leaves on the tree, the researchers also color-coded each leaf to symbolize how close a species is to extinction: green (no threat), red (threatened), black (recently extinct), and gray (extinction threat unknown).

It’s now the most comprehensive single-view tree of life ever created and the researchers hope that humans will get a better idea of how they fit into the greater scheme of things on Earth and be inspired to preserve our planet’s biodiversity. You can even “sponsor a leaf” to help fund the project.

Featured Image: Pexels