Argentina has made rapid progress in the genetic identification of birds as part of the International Barcode of Life Project (iBOL). “Of the 1,000 species of birds in Argentina, we have obtained the DNA barcode sequence of 4,000 specimens corresponding to 750 species,” scientist Pablo Tubaro told Tierramérica.

Tubaro is the director of the Bernardino Rivadavia Museum of Natural Sciences and coordinator of the iBOL project in Argentina, where significant progress is also being made in the identification of fish and arachnids.

Worldwide, the project has now identified two million DNA barcode sequences of 200,000 species and hopes to reach five million sequences from at least 500,000 species by 2015. The ultimate goal is to cover the entire universe of living organisms.