Biodiversity · Database
Paleobiology Database
A scientific database of fossil occurrences, taxa, and collections with geographic and stratigraphic context.
What Paleobiology Database is
The Paleobiology Database (PBDB) is an online scientific repository providing data on the taxonomic classification and global distribution of fossil animals, plants, and microorganisms. It captures fossil occurrences, taxonomic definitions, and fossil collections placed within explicit geographic and stratigraphic frameworks.
The initiative originated from the Phanerozoic Marine Paleofaunal Database between 1998 and 2000. It is overseen by an international committee of major scientific contributors, is housed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and collaborates with the Neotoma Paleoecology Database under the EarthLife Consortium to facilitate the sharing of paleobiological and paleoecological records.
How it is organised
The repository organizes data around fossil collections, individual occurrences, and taxonomic classifications linked to published scientific references and stratigraphic units. Contributors record biological specimens alongside details of their discovery locations and geological horizons, allowing users to query, visualise, and download integrated paleontological datasets via a web portal or application programming interface (API).
Key facts
- Host institution
- University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Primary focus
- Fossil occurrences, taxa, and collections with geographic and stratigraphic context
- Biological scope
- Fossil animals, plants, and microorganisms
- Data access methods
- Web interface, downloadable archives, API, and R packages
- Governance
- International committee of major data contributors
What you can use it for
- Mapping past organism distributions
- Researchers track the spatial and temporal distributions of extinct plants, animals, and microorganisms using geo-referenced occurrence data.
- Analysing evolutionary classifications
- Systematists explore taxonomic hierarchies and historical classifications across different fossil groups and associated published literature.
- Stratigraphic correlation of fossil collections
- Geologists and paleontologists evaluate fossil occurrences across specific stratigraphic units and geological periods.
Query it here
The research agent queries Paleobiology Database directly — no account, no API key — and every answer links back to the record it came from. Ask in plain language and it writes the query.
Strengths and limits
Good at
- Integrates fossil occurrences directly with taxonomic hierarchies, geographic coordinates, and stratigraphic context.
- Provides programmatic data access alongside web-based search, visualisations, and dedicated R packages.
Watch out for
- Range data for certain groups, such as Cenozoic mammal families, have faced criticism for potential exaggeration due to uncritical inclusion of mistaken data.
Questions
Can I search Paleobiology Database without writing code?
Yes. The research agent queries Paleobiology Database directly, with no account or API key, and cites the record behind every answer. Ask in plain language — for a gene, a protein, a compound or a study — and it builds the query for you.
Can I reuse data from Paleobiology Database?
CC BY 4.0. Terms: https://paleobiodb.org/#/faq
What types of organisms are documented in the database?
The database contains records of fossil animals, plants, and microorganisms.
How can researchers retrieve data from the repository?
Data can be searched, browsed, and downloaded directly through the web interface, retrieved via an API, or accessed using specialized R packages and scripts.
How does the Paleobiology Database relate to the Neotoma Paleoecology Database?
The two databases work closely together and co-founded the EarthLife Consortium to promote the sharing of paleoecological and paleobiological information.
Written from Paleobiology Database's own website and reference material. Statements citing a figure that does not appear there are removed before publication. Licence and running details come from our registry.