What Is PhyloPic and How Can You Use Its Free Biology Silhouettes?

Updated

PhyloPic is an open database of free silhouette images of animals, plants, and other life forms, available for reuse under Creative Commons licenses. It is useful when you need a clean, single-color organism outline for a diagram, slide, poster, or paper and want to avoid unclear copyright. The database currently holds 13,038 silhouette images, and anyone may upload new ones. Before publishing, check the specific license attached to each image and provide attribution as that license requires.

What you can find on PhyloPic

PhyloPic organizes silhouettes by taxonomic group, so you can search by the organism you need rather than by file name. The site lists its most popular groups by actual traffic, which gives a sense of what is well covered:

  • Life as the broadest category, branching into animals, plants, fungi, bacteria, and viruses
  • Animals, including vertebrates (mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians) and many invertebrate groups such as insects, mollusks, annelids, and spiders
  • Plants, including grasses and oaks
  • Fungi, bacteria, and viruses

Because coverage follows contributor uploads, some groups are dense (for example, mammals and insects) while others may have only a few options. If a search returns nothing, try a broader group or a related taxon.

How to download and use a silhouette

  1. Search or browse for the organism you need on phylopic.org.
  2. Open an image to view its details, including the license and the contributor.
  3. Download the silhouette in the format offered.
  4. Check the license for that specific image — PhyloPic images use Creative Commons licenses, and the terms differ between them.
  5. Attribute the contributor in the way the license specifies, typically crediting the image creator and noting the license.
  6. Place the image in your diagram, slide, worksheet, or article, recoloring or resizing as your layout needs.

The expected result is a legally reusable organism outline that fits your project without a custom illustration.

Accessing data for software and automation

If you are building a tool rather than placing images by hand, PhyloPic offers an API. Software engineers may access the data in PhyloPic using the API, and the site provides API Recipes and API Documentation to get started. Developers may also add features to the PhyloPic website through its codebase.

This matters when you need to pull many silhouettes programmatically, for example generating a figure that labels dozens of species, or building an educational app that fetches an image on demand.

Contributing and supporting the project

  • Upload silhouettes: Anyone may upload silhouettes to PhyloPic, so you can add coverage for organisms that are missing.
  • Improve the site: Engineers can contribute code or features.
  • Donate: The site asks for donations to keep the web service fund running, and also links to Patreon and "buy me a coffee" options for supporting the creator.
  • Stay updated: A mailing list newsletter covers site improvements and new features.

Common points to watch

  • License varies per image. "Creative Commons" is a family of licenses, not one set of terms. Confirm the exact license before commercial or modified use.
  • Attribution is usually required. Plan how you will credit contributors in your final material.
  • Coverage is uneven. Popular groups have many silhouettes; rare taxa may have few or none.
  • Silhouettes are outlines, not full illustrations. They suit diagrams, keys, and icons, not detailed anatomical figures.

If your project needs a simple, reusable organism shape and you can meet the license terms, PhyloPic is a practical first stop. If you need detailed or colored artwork, you will likely need another source.