WELCOME TO WORLDBIRDNAMES.ORG

The site supplements and virtually replaces the book
"BIRDS OF THE WORLD Recommended English Names"
By Frank Gill and Minturn Wright
Princeton University Press, 2006

Our GoalS

Our goal on behalf of the International Ornithological Congress (IOC) is to facilitate worldwide communication in ornithology and conservation through the consistent use of English names linked to current species taxonomy. The English names follow explicit guidelines for spelling and construction that increase clarity of application.

To this end we provide a complete list of the extant bird species of the world. We update the list regularly to include changes of names or classification, additions of newly described species as well as proposed splits and lumps, and taxonomic comments. We strive to include the latest information on the taxonomy of world birds.

The IOC World List is a volunteer project with worldwide participation by birders and professional ornithologists. Thus, in this age of wiki-style sharing of knowledge, we invite all interested colleagues to help us keep the IOC list accurate, vital, and accessible. You can reach us at worldbirdnames@earthlink.net. We welcome your participation, your corrections, and your suggestions for improvement of the IOC World List.

The global use of this website and the IOC list is encouraging. Nearly 4000 colleagues visit the site each month. The IOC list serves as the basis for English names in Wikipedia (English). The IOC list also provides the defacto species taxonomy of Wikipedia (French) and the Tree of Life project.

The IOC World Bird List is available through Avibase, thanks to Denis LePage and Bird Studies Canada. The Avibase database tracks the history of name changes and also allows users to create checklists for different localities using alternative world lists. BirdStack is a free web-based birding software for creating and updating personal IOC lists of birds seen anywhere in the world

Special thanks to our panel of expert advisors (left panel), to Curtis Hawthorne, David Ringer and Eng-Li Green for website management, and to all active participants.

Frank Gill, David Donsker and the IOC team

This Website provides

  • HTML lists of 10,396 species of birds of the world (Version 2.5), with footnote annotations.
  • Classification of 39 Orders, 222 Families (+ 7 Incertae Sedis), 2218 Genera
  • Update summaries of new species and proposed splits, taxonomic revisions, and changes of names.
  • Downloadable files of Version 2.5
    • Excel file (XLS) - Life List format, including species ranges (1.25 Mb)
    • Excel file (XLS) - Master list including species Ranges and comments in computer format (1.5 Mb)
    • CSV version for database projects (746 Kb) [Note: This file is encoded as UTF-8 and will not open properly in Excel. If you plan to use Excel, please download one of the XLS files above.]
    • XML version for website and database projects  (4.7 Mb)
  • Comparison (v4.5) by Dave Sargeant and David Matson of the IOC list (Version 2.5) vs Clements (6e) - download Excel file (5.29 Mb).
  • Spelling guidelines for English bird names, including On hyphens and phylogeny (WJO 2009)
  • Reviews and suggestions for improvement

Suggested Citation

Gill, F. & D. Donsker (Eds). 2010. IOC World Bird Names (version 2.5). Available at http://www.worldbirdnames.org/ [Accessed "Date"].