Welcome to the OneZoom tree of life explorer...

An interactive map of the evolutionary links between all living things known to science. Discover your favourites, see which species are under threat, and be amazed by the diversity of life on earth.

Our tree of life explorer is designed to be easily accessible for everyone. We also provide educational tools for teachers, software for scientists and interactive exhibits for museums. This is a free community resource with no advertising.

What is the tree of life?

The tree of life shows how all life on earth is related. Each leaf represents a different species. The branches show how these many species evolved from common ancestors over billions of years. In our interactive tree of life you can explore the relationships between 2,235,076 species and wonder at 105,344 images on a single zoomable page.

  • 2,235,076 species
  • 105,344 images

Popular places to start exploring...

Biodiversity and Conservation...

We want to help everyone appreciate biodiversity and the need to conserve it.
Red leaves on our tree of life show species known to be under threat of extinction.
Green leaves are either okay for now but might be nearly threatened.
Most leaves are grey meaning that it's not known how threatened they are.

Norfolk island araucaria Tiger Sumatran rhinoceros Silken pincushion Lady's slipper orchid

What they say...

Other endorsements

Become a sponsor...

OneZoom is a registered non-profit in the UK, all our products are available for free. 848 people like you have helped us by making donations. Their names have appeared as sponsors on 1498 leaves of our tree of life leaves of our tree of life.

Only one name per leaf so get your favourite while you can, for yourself or as a gift.

What we've been up to...

  • 14 December 2021

    Announcing the publication of ‘Dynamic visualisation of million-tip trees: The OneZoom project’ out today in Methods in Ecology and Evolution. This publication accompanies OneZoom version 3.5 'Chocolate chip starfish' and explains a lot of the science behind the OneZoom project.

  • 15 October 2021

    OneZoom version 3.5 'Chocolate chip starfish' released with new and improved colour schemes and styles as well as substantial improvements to the content and interpretation pages throughout the site.

  • 16 October 2020

    OneZoom version 3.4.1 released with new public APIs providing information on the popularity of species and representative images for groups of species as well as other tools intentended for use by researchers and other science communication projects.

  • 15 October 2020

    A new publication, Dynamic visualisation of million-tip trees: the OneZoom project, is now live on BioRxiv describing a lot of the research that's gone on behind the scenes over the last five years to make OneZoom a reality.

  • 30 April 2020

    Thank you to the first people who supported us with sponsorship four years ago. Your sponsored leaves would normally be up for renewal right now. We've decided to extend your sponsorships for free so you don't have to worry about it at this difficult time during a global pandemic. We will write to all our sponsors giving plenty of notice when it's time to renew.