Scientists and ordinary people all over the world are invited to take action in order to preserve- at least online- what is left of God’s amazing creation.

With their natural habitats threatened by man’s continuous expansion and by the dramatic climate changes (also partially generated by human activity), a lot of animals, plants and microbes- some of them even unknown to science- are on the brink of extinction.

With the grim specter of never having the chance of even catching a glimpse of those creatures, scientists are now hoping to at least more thoroughly map the existing 1.8 million “named” species catalogued until now. The endeavor is set to last at least a decade and to cost around $100 million, with the hope that at its projected end scientists will have an exhaustive database containing as detailed as possible information about Earth’s biodiversity.

Although God’s creations living on the land have largely been classified by now, biologists estimate that there are still a few mammals, reptiles or insects that have eluded investigation efforts, and that the marine fauna and flora are still a great enigma for the scientific world. For example, marine biologists estimate that there are between a few hundred thousands to a few million tiny creatures lurking in the waters of the planetary ocean that are still waiting to be discovered.

"Life forms with which we've shared the planet are going extinct at an alarming rate - usually before we even determine what they are and what role they play in the ecosystem," he said. "Our knowledge of biodiversity is so incomplete that we are at risk of losing a great deal of it before it is even discovered."

The Encyclopedia of Life will be headquartered in Washington, and is projected to be a computer-based, ever-expanding roster of all life forms. Eventually, the Encyclopedia will give scientists an unprecedented means to help decide when they have encountered a new species.

Built on the model of Cornell University’s Folding@Home program and combining the features of its bigger sister, the Public Library of Science (plos.org), the recently launched Encyclopedia should also prove useful to people ranging from bio-entrepreneurs to bird-watchers, as its content will be publicly available to everyone.

The encyclopedia's Web site, eol.org, contains only a few samples but in a few years is expected to describe hundreds of thousands of species.