With the website of the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS: www.marinespecies.org) the VLIZ and worldwide taxonomic experts aim to provide the most authoritative list of names of all marine species globally, ever published. The number of visitors to this website is increasing. Now monthly 1,000,000 hits are counted, meaning on an average day more than 2,000 visits per day.

September was the third month already showing over one million hits. On a regular week day, there are more than 2,000 visits. For 2009, we are approaching 200,000 unique visitors (on the basis of the IP address). If WoRMS could help each of these researchers to save on average one working day per year to find the currently valid name or correct spelling, then this would mean a total gain of 1,000 full time equivalents this year only (not to mention a.o. the scientific benefit).

In addition, information from WoRMS is also provided to the Encyclopedia of Life and the Catalogue of Life (visits to these websites are not included).

Copies of the WoRMS database have also been licensed (at no cost) to over 50 organisations in 17 countries around the world, including Africa, America, Australia and Europe. At least 8 organisations are using the new dynamic Web-Service for their species data management. Agreements on data exchange are in operation with Species 2000 for the Catalogue of Life, the Encyclopedia of Life, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility for the Global Names Index, the Barcode of Life, and GenBank.

More information on the usage of WoRMS is available at www.marinespecies.org/users.php.