How we build our profiles
WAnimals brings together thousands of profiles of species, parks and dive sites. This page explains where each piece of data comes from, what we do to avoid publishing anything we cannot back up, and where the limits of what we can guarantee lie.
Where the data comes from
No data in the catalogue is invented. Every field comes from a reference source, and when a source does not cover a field, that field is left empty rather than filled in.
- Taxonomy and common names: GBIF, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, which also provides the vernacular names for each language. A common name is not translated word for word: we look up the one that is actually used.
- Conservation status: the IUCN Red List. We distinguish between a global and a regional assessment, because the same species can hold two accurate categories at once.
- Distribution: GBIF occurrence records, cross-checked against the profile. When the link between a species and a place does not fit its known range, it is flagged for review instead of being published.
- Biological data — size, weight, lifespan, diet: AnAge, WoRMS, FishBase, Animal Diversity Web and Wikidata, depending on the group.
- The written descriptions are drafted from those sources and from Wikipedia, and each profile lists the ones consulted.
What we do to avoid making things up
- Anything that cannot be confirmed in full is not published by halves. If a translation or a conversion leaves something unresolved, the field stays pending: a gap is visible, whereas an incomplete sentence counts as done and nobody looks at it again.
- “Not available in the sources consulted” is not a fact, and it is never written into a profile.
- A description that only restates the classification — “X is a species in the family Y” — does not count as content, and is not enough to consider a profile documented.
- An incomplete profile says so out loud. We would rather show what is missing than pad it out with text that adds nothing.
- A conservation status needs two sources in agreement. If only one backs it, the value is not written: it is set aside to be checked by hand against the Red List.
The role of artificial intelligence
We use artificial intelligence to gather information from the sources above, draft text and translate the catalogue into several languages. We say so openly, because anyone reading a profile has a right to know.
What it does not do is replace the sources. Every fact still comes from one of them, and automated checks reject text before it is published: text that merely restates taxonomy, text that loses a figure in translation, text that contradicts another field in the same profile, and text copied over without being translated.
Decisions no rule can make — which common name to use when there are several, or whether a source is in fact referring to a different species — are reviewed by hand.
The images in the catalogue — species, parks and breeds, plus the section covers — are generated with artificial intelligence. They are illustrations, not photographs: they help you recognise the animal or the place, but they may not reproduce every trait exactly, so the text of the profile and its sources take precedence over the image. That is why every profile says so next to its image. Photos the community posts with their sightings are real photographs taken by whoever uploads them.
Translations, and how we know they still hold
Every translated profile keeps a fingerprint of the original text it came from. If the original is rewritten, the translation stops matching and flags itself — so it never sits there describing something that is no longer there, which is how a multilingual encyclopaedia ages badly.
And comparing what two languages say about the same text finds errors in the original. A real case: one profile dated a Nobel Prize in Medicine to 2002, the English translated it faithfully and the German wrote 2000, which is the right year. Looking at either translation on its own, there was nothing to object to.
What we cannot guarantee
A catalogue this size contains errors. We look for them with audits against GBIF and the Red List, and profiles are corrected and expanded continuously, but it would be dishonest to present this as a finished, fully reviewed work.
WAnimals is a general-interest and travel guide. It is not a substitute for a scientific source or for professional advice.
If you find a mistake
Write to us and we will fix it. Reports about specific data are the fastest way to improve the catalogue.