Catagolue

Catagolue
Conducted by	Adam P. Goucher
Type	Distributed
Contributors	>100
Year(s)	2015 – present
Status	Ongoing
Parameters
Universe	Infinite plane
Soup size	16×16
Initial soup density	0.5
Soups searched	≥587,443,221,069,880
Results
Total objects	≥7,315,050,809,532,447
Distinct objects	≥553,848

Catagolue is an ongoing distributed census of naturally occurring ash objects conducted by Adam P. Goucher, started in late February 2015. The census is primarily focused on asymmetric soups in Conway's Life, but supports arbitrary outer-totalistic and non-totalistic rules and a variety of symmetries. Over 100 users have contributed to the census.

The results are obtained by evolving random soups of size 16×16 with density 0.5 in an infinite planar universe; as of June 2, 2026, at least 587,443,221,069,880 soups have been investigated by the census's participants, yielding a total of at least 7,315,050,809,532,447 objects of 553,848 distinct types. Submissions of new results (called hauls) are subjected to both statistical tests and peer-review by other participants before being committed to the census.

Catagolue is primarily fed by apgsearch 5.x (apgluxe). Each resulting object is identified by apgsearch by its unique apgcode; the Catagolue website gives overviews over the various classes of objects found, and provides further information as well as sample soups for each object. A simple text-based interface for querying sample soups, including their owners, also exists.

History

Main article: History of Catagolue

Catagolue became operative on February 20, 2015. The B3/S23/C1 census reached a total of one trillion objects on April 24, 2015, ten trillion objects on September 2, 2015, 100 trillion objects on June 20, 2016, and 200 trillion objects on May 16, 2017.

Results in Conway's Game of Life

Also see: apgsearch#Notable patterns

Asymmetric soups

Also see: Most common objects on Catagolue

The default rule/symmetry combination for apgsearch, B3/S23/C1, is by far the most popular census on Catagolue. As of June 2, 2026, at least 587,443,221,069,880 soups have been investigated by the census's participants, yielding a total of at least 7,315,050,809,532,447 objects of 553,848 distinct types.

A view of the combined statistics for the C1 and G1 symmetries can be seen in the asymmetric-soups census.

Click on "Expand" to the right to view full statistics for B3/S23/C1 and B3/S23/G1 combined.

• Still lifes:
  • All still lifes up to 15 bits.
  • 3,229 of the 3,286 16-bit still lifes.
  • 6,995 of the 7,773 17-bit still lifes.
  • 13,757 of the 19,044 18-bit still lifes.
  • 23,461 of the 45,759 19-bit still lifes.
  • 35,583 of the 112,243 20-bit still lifes.
  • 48,079 of the 273,188 21-bit still lifes.
  • 58,620 of the 672,172 22-bit still lifes.
  • 63,346 of the 1,646,147 23-bit still lifes.
  • 63,184 of the 4,051,732 24-bit still lifes.
  • 56,496 of the 9,971,377 25-bit still lifes.
  • 48,355 of the 24,619,307 26-bit still lifes.
  • 37,409 of the 60,823,008 27-bit still lifes.
  • 28,072 of the 150,613,157 28-bit still lifes.
  • 18,963 of the 373,188,952 29-bit still lifes.
  • 12,936 of the 926,068,847 30-bit still lifes.
  • 7,704 of the 2,299,616,637 31-bit still lifes.
  • 4,718 of the 5,716,948,683 32-bit still lifes.
  • 2,570 of the 14,223,867,298 33-bit still lifes.
  • 1,566 34-bit still lifes.
  • 799 35-bit still lifes.
  • 509 36-bit still lifes.
  • 206 37-bit still lifes.
  • 174 38-bit still lifes.
  • 64 39-bit still lifes.
  • 66 40-bit still lifes.
  • 17 41-bit still lifes.
  • 27 42-bit still lifes.
  • 6 43-bit still lifes.
  • 18 44-bit still lifes.
  • 3 45-bit still lifes (one of which is Cthulhu).
  • 10 D2_+1-symmetric 46-bit still lifes (including professor and an inflected variant of it).
  • 1 47-bit still life.
  • 6 48-bit still lifes.
  • 1 50-bit still life.
  • 2 56-bit still lifes (cloverleaf interchange and one other).
• Oscillators:
  • 9,983 period 2 oscillators (including phoenix 1, cyclic, and quad).
  • 1,993 period 3 oscillators (including trice tongs, all three keys variants, and pulsar quadrant).
  • 141 period 4 oscillators (including monogram, confused eaters, and many stator variants of gray counter).
  • 43 period 5 oscillators (including Elkies' p5 and multiple stator variants of heart, Silver's p5, and hooks).
  • 35 period 6 oscillators (including unix on clock).
  • 23 period 8 oscillators (including Achim's p8, Tim Coe's p8 and smiley).
  • 1 period 14 oscillator (tumbler).
  • 110 period 15 oscillators (all involving pentadecathlon(s) in some way).
  • 1 period 16 oscillator (Rob's p16).
  • 2 period 24 oscillators (boring p24 and uninteresting p24).
  • 208 period 30 oscillators (including Berger's p30 and symmetric queen bee shuttles 1 and 2).
  • 10 period 46 oscillators (all variants of the twin bees shuttle).
  • 2 period 120 oscillators (figure eight on pentadecathlon in two ways).
• Spaceships:
  • 46 period 4 spaceships (including sidecar, MWSS and HWSS dragging block, and all 39 non-trivial flotillae of two standard spaceships).
  • 1 period 7 spaceship (the loafer).
  • 1 period 12 spaceship (the Schick engine).
  • 1 period 16 spaceship (the Coe ship).
• Long-lived patterns:
  • 3,604,497 methuselahs lasting between 25,000 and 25,999 generations.
  • 1,942,748 methuselahs lasting between 26,000 and 26,999 generations.
  • 1,081,118 methuselahs lasting between 27,000 and 27,999 generations.
  • 572,919 methuselahs lasting between 28,000 and 28,999 generations.
  • 404,139 methuselahs lasting between 29,000 and 29,999 generations.
  • 175,006 methuselahs lasting between 30,000 and 30,999 generations.
  • 96,847 methuselahs lasting between 31,000 and 31,999 generations.
  • 52,305 methuselahs lasting between 32,000 and 32,999 generations.
  • 29,023 methuselahs lasting between 33,000 and 33,999 generations.
  • 15,746 methuselahs lasting between 34,000 and 34,999 generations.
  • 8,790 methuselahs lasting between 35,000 and 35,999 generations.
  • 4,539 methuselahs lasting between 36,000 and 36,999 generations.
  • 2,803 methuselahs lasting between 37,000 and 37,999 generations.
  • 1,535 methuselahs lasting between 38,000 and 38,999 generations.
  • 852 methuselahs lasting between 39,000 and 39,999 generations.
  • 457 methuselahs lasting between 40,000 and 40,999 generations.
  • 324 methuselahs lasting between 41,000 and 41,999 generations.
  • 171 methuselahs lasting between 42,000 and 42,999 generations (including 42100M and Homer).
  • 73 methuselahs lasting between 43,000 and 43,999 generations.
  • 34 methuselahs lasting between 44,000 and 44,999 generations.
  • 17 methuselahs lasting between 45,000 and 45,999 generations.
  • 19 methuselahs lasting between 46,000 and 46,999 generations.
  • 16 methuselahs lasting between 47,000 and 47,999 generations.
  • 5 methuselahs lasting between 48,000 and 48,999 generations.
  • 2 methuselahs lasting between 49,000 and 49,999 generations.
  • 5 methuselahs lasting between 50,000 and 50,999 generations.
  • 1 methuselah lasting between 51,000 and 51,999 generations.
  • 1 methuselah lasting between 52,000 and 52,999 generations.
  • 7,780,075 diehards lasting between 500 and 599 generations.
  • 1,001,427 diehards lasting between 600 and 699 generations.
  • 134,519 diehards lasting between 700 and 799 generations.
  • 22,229 diehards lasting between 800 and 899 generations.
  • 3,767 diehards lasting between 900 and 999 generations.
  • 708 diehards lasting between 1,000 and 1,099 generations.
  • 151 diehards lasting between 1,100 and 1,199 generations.
  • 26 diehards lasting between 1,200 and 1,299 generations.
  • 9 diehards lasting between 1,300 and 1,399 generations.
  • 1 diehard lasting between 1,400 and 1,499 generations.
  • 56,709,781 soups with a final population of between 3,000 and 3,099.
  • 36,105,721 soups with a final population of between 3,100 and 3,199.
  • 23,265,664 soups with a final population of between 3,200 and 3,299.
  • 14,995,716 soups with a final population of between 3,300 and 3,399.
  • 9,741,415 soups with a final population of between 3,400 and 3,499.
  • 6,105,505 soups with a final population of between 3,500 and 3,599.
  • 3,871,916 soups with a final population of between 3,600 and 3,699.
  • 2,511,174 soups with a final population of between 3,700 and 3,799.
  • 1,620,950 soups with a final population of between 3,800 and 3,899.
  • 1,048,144 soups with a final population of between 3,900 and 3,999.
  • 672,468 soups with a final population of between 4,000 and 4,099.
  • 416,867 soups with a final population of between 4,100 and 4,199.
  • 265,353 soups with a final population of between 4,200 and 4,299.
  • 173,223 soups with a final population of between 4,300 and 4,399.
  • 111,394 soups with a final population of between 4,400 and 4,499.
  • 72,586 soups with a final population of between 4,500 and 4,599.
  • 46,514 soups with a final population of between 4,600 and 4,699.
  • 29,837 soups with a final population of between 4,700 and 4,799.
  • 19,400 soups with a final population of between 4,800 and 4,899.
  • 11,993 soups with a final population of between 4,900 and 4,999.
  • 7,610 soups with a final population of between 5,000 and 5,099.
  • 5,198 soups with a final population of between 5,100 and 5,199.
  • 3,502 soups with a final population of between 5,200 and 5,299.
  • 2,139 soups with a final population of between 5,300 and 5,399.
  • 1,406 soups with a final population of between 5,400 and 5,499.
  • 936 soups with a final population of between 5,500 and 5,599.
  • 546 soups with a final population of between 5,600 and 5,699.
  • 477 soups with a final population of between 5,700 and 5,799.
  • 260 soups with a final population of between 5,800 and 5,899.
  • 145 soups with a final population of between 5,900 and 5,999.
  • 87 soups with a final population of between 6,000 and 6,099.
  • 70 soups with a final population of between 6,100 and 6,199.
  • 39 soups with a final population of between 6,200 and 6,299.
  • 36 soups with a final population of between 6,300 and 6,399.
  • 15 soups with a final population of between 6,400 and 6,499.
  • 8 soups with a final population of between 6,500 and 6,599.
  • 9 soups with a final population of between 6,600 and 6,699.
  • 7 soups with a final population of between 6,700 and 6,799.
  • 6 soups with a final population of between 6,800 and 6,899.
  • 1 soup with a final population of between 7,000 and 7,099.
  • 1 soup with a final population of between 7,100 and 7,199.
  • 1 soup with a final population of between 7,200 and 7,299.
• Other patterns:
  • 1767 Infinite-growth patterns, such as the pony express, birthday puffer, as well as numerous unnamed puffers such as yl1152_2016_06_24 and yl4608_2015_11_28.

Plots

Scatter plot of total still life counts vs. populations in B3/S23/C1 as of July 15, 2017.

Scatter plot of distinct still life counts vs. populations in B3/S23/C1 as of July 15, 2017; the blue line indicates the total number of distinct still lifes per population ( A019473).

All symmetries

As of February 25, 2026, at least 2,705,504,465,129,849 soups have been investigated in all official symmetries of B3/S23, yielding a combined total of at least 12,300,520,192,401,281 objects of 3,968,879 distinct types.

Click on "Expand" to the right to view full statistics for higher symmetries of B3/S23.

• Still lifes:
  • All still lifes up to 15 bits.
  • 3,261 of the 3,286 16-bit still lifes.
  • 7,270 of the 7,773 17-bit still lifes.
  • ...
  • 6 D8-symmetric 284-bit still lifes.
  • 51 D8-symmetric 288-bit still lifes.
  • 3 D8-symmetric 292-bit still lifes.
  • 28 D8-symmetric 296-bit still lifes.
  • 11 D8-symmetric 304-bit still lifes.
  • 3 D8-symmetric 308-bit still lifes.
  • 2 D8-symmetric 312-bit still lifes.
  • 2 D8-symmetric 316-bit still lifes.
  • 3 D8-symmetric 320-bit still lifes.
  • 1 D8-symmetric 336-bit still life.
  • 1 D8-symmetric 344-bit still life.
• Oscillators:
  • 493,410 period 2 oscillators.
  • 60,369 period 3 oscillators.
  • 30,510 period 4 oscillators.
  • 23,962 period 5 oscillators.
  • 8,163 period 6 oscillators.
  • 1,962 period 7 oscillators.
  • 1,381 period 8 oscillators.
  • 1,122 period 9 oscillators (including the worker bee, the snacker, and 68P9).
  • 1,437 period 10 oscillators (including introvert, extrovert, 24P10 and two variants of 128P10.2).
  • 470 period 11 oscillators (including Achim's p11, many variants of Jason's p11, and many variants of 38P11.1).
  • 119 period 12 oscillators (including Eye of Sauron and several trivial oscillators).
  • 2 period 13 oscillators (Beluchenko's p13 and a block hassler based on it).
  • 137 period 14 oscillators (including 34P14 shuttle).
  • 2,523 period 15 oscillators (including Karel's p15 and 112P15).
  • 17 period 16 oscillators (Achim's p16, Achim's other p16, Rich's p16, 68P16, Charity's p16, Grid's p16, and a fourfold form of the p16 in 69P48, plus variants of some of these).
  • 55 period 18 oscillators (Four eaters hassling four bookends and many stator variants of it, Charity's p18, a p18 pi-heptomino hassler, and several that are a trivial p9 and p2).
  • 28 period 20 oscillators (34P20 and several trivial p4 and p5 combinations).
  • 7 period 21 oscillators (32P21, 72P21, and five trivial p3/p7s).
  • 10 period 22 oscillators (48P22.1 and Jason's p22 and a stator variant, and trivial p2/p11s).
  • 89 period 24 oscillators (including the p24 shuttle and dueling banjos).
  • 3 period 25 oscillators (30P25 and a variant, plus Charity's p25).
  • 2 period 26 oscillators (p26 pre-pulsar shuttle in two forms).
  • 2 period 27 oscillators (56P27 and a stator variant).
  • 4 period 28 oscillators (Karel's p28, a stator variant of it, and two p28 pre-pulsar-shuttle variants).
  • 44 period 29 oscillators (all variants of the p29 pre-pulsar-shuttle).
  • 3,204 period 30 oscillators (including Eureka and many variants thereof).
  • 1 period 31 oscillator (Merzenich's p31).
  • 1 period 32 oscillator (68P32.1).
  • 1 period 33 oscillator (a trivial combination of cuphook and 38P11.1).
  • 2 period 35 oscillators (both a trivial p5 and p7).
  • 69 period 36 oscillators (including 22P36 and p36 shuttle).
  • 11 period 37 oscillators (all variants of Beluchenko's p37).
  • 20 period 40 oscillators (Beluchenko's p40 in both basic form and with extra blocks, p40 pre-pulsar hassler, and several LCM(8,5) oscillators).
  • 3 period 45 oscillators (pentadecathlon on snacker in three variants).
  • 965 period 46 oscillators.
  • 1 period 51 oscillator (Beluchenko's p51).
  • 13 period 54 oscillators (all variants of the p54 shuttle).
  • 1 period 55 oscillator (a trivial p5 and p11).
  • 1 period 56 oscillator (figure eight on Karel's p28).
  • 1 period 58 oscillator (a trivial p2 and p29).
  • 67 period 60 oscillators.
  • 3 period 64 oscillators (p64 thunderbird hassler, Merzenich's p64, and a Merzenich's p64 variant).
  • 1 period 66 oscillator (Hilton's p66).
  • 7 period 86 oscillators (76P86 and stator variants).
  • 1 period 92 oscillator (a period-doubled twin bees shuttle).
  • 1 period 103 oscillator (siffrin's p103).
  • 66 period 120 oscillators (all of which are LCM oscillators).
  • 16 period 138 oscillators (mostly variants of Gabriel's p138, but includes trivial twin bees shuttle with p3s as stabilisation).
  • 1 period 144 oscillator (Achim's p144).
  • 1 period 177 oscillator (Karel's p177).
  • 1 period 232 oscillator (an LCM of figure eight and p29 pre-pulsar shuttle).
  • 7 period 312 oscillators (all variants of 60P312).
• Spaceships:
  • 1 period 3 spaceship (dart).
  • 336 period 4 spaceships (including x66, Big A, and a number of improperly-separated pseudo-flotillae).
  • 1 period 5 spaceship (44P5H2V0).
  • 1 period 7 spaceship (loafer).
  • 1 period 8 spaceship (58P8H4V0).
  • 1 period 10 spaceship (copperhead).
  • 5 period 12 spaceships (the lightweight, middleweight and heavyweight Schick engine, a middleweight Schick engine with LWSSes on the sides, and 54P12H6V0).
  • 2 period 16 spaceships (the Coe ship and a doubled Coe ship).
• Long-lived patterns:
  • 4,858,539 methuselahs lasting between 25,000 and 25,999 generations.
  • 2,626,511 methuselahs lasting between 26,000 and 26,999 generations.
  • 1,456,940 methuselahs lasting between 27,000 and 27,999 generations.
  • 780,187 methuselahs lasting between 28,000 and 28,999 generations.
  • 528,165 methuselahs lasting between 29,000 and 29,999 generations.
  • 240,576 methuselahs lasting between 30,000 and 30,999 generations.
  • 131,542 methuselahs lasting between 31,000 and 31,999 generations.
  • 71,214 methuselahs lasting between 32,000 and 32,999 generations.
  • 39,170 methuselahs lasting between 33,000 and 33,999 generations.
  • 21,429 methuselahs lasting between 34,000 and 34,999 generations.
  • 11,952 methuselahs lasting between 35,000 and 35,999 generations.
  • 6,334 methuselahs lasting between 36,000 and 36,999 generations.
  • 3,792 methuselahs lasting between 37,000 and 37,999 generations.
  • 2,093 methuselahs lasting between 38,000 and 38,999 generations.
  • 1,176 methuselahs lasting between 39,000 and 39,999 generations.
  • 644 methuselahs lasting between 40,000 and 40,999 generations.
  • 408 methuselahs lasting between 41,000 and 41,999 generations.
  • 221 methuselahs lasting between 42,000 and 42,999 generations.
  • 115 methuselahs lasting between 43,000 and 43,999 generations.
  • 70 methuselahs lasting between 44,000 and 44,999 generations.
  • 25 methuselahs lasting between 45,000 and 45,999 generations.
  • 29 methuselahs lasting between 46,000 and 46,999 generations.
  • 23 methuselahs lasting between 47,000 and 47,999 generations.
  • 7 methuselahs lasting between 48,000 and 48,999 generations.
  • 31 methuselahs lasting between 49,000 and 49,999 generations.
  • 6 methuselahs lasting between 50,000 and 50,999 generations.
  • 3 methuselah lasting between 51,000 and 51,999 generations, in C1
  • 1 methuselah lasting between 52,000 and 52,999 generations, in C1.
  • 1 methuselah lasting between 53,000 and 53,999 generations, in D4_x1.
  • ...
  • 1 methuselah lasting between 119,000 and 119,999 generations, caused by a switch engine pair that gets killed by a glider.
  • 1 methuselah lasting between 124,000 and 124,999 generations, caused by a switch engine pair that gets killed by a glider.
  • 23 methuselahs lasting between 128,000 and 128,999 generations, caused by a switch engine pair that gets killed by a glider; this is an index fossil.
  • 1 methuselah lasting between 129,000 and 129,999 generations, caused by a switch engine pair that gets killed by a glider.
  • 1 methuselah lasting between 130,000 and 130,999 generations, caused by a switch engine pair that gets killed by a glider.
  • 1 methuselah lasting between 138,000 and 138,999 generations, caused by a switch engine pair that gets killed by a glider.
  • 662,317,677 diehards lasting between 500 and 599 generations.
  • 150,336,610 diehards lasting between 600 and 699 generations.
  • 36,417,005 diehards lasting between 700 and 799 generations.
  • 10,247,001 diehards lasting between 800 and 899 generations.
  • 2,891,993 diehards lasting between 900 and 999 generations.
  • 900,234 diehards lasting between 1,000 and 1,099 generations.
  • 287,507 diehards lasting between 1,100 and 1,199 generations.
  • 92,157 diehards lasting between 1,200 and 1,299 generations.
  • 59,401 diehards lasting between 1,300 and 1,399 generations.
  • 55,192 diehards lasting between 1,400 and 1,499 generations.
  • 7,736 diehards lasting between 1,500 and 1,599 generations.
  • 1,881 diehards lasting between 1,600 and 1,699 generations.
  • 695 diehards lasting between 1,700 and 1,799 generations.
  • 266 diehards lasting between 1,800 and 1,899 generations.
  • 84 diehards lasting between 1,900 and 1,999 generations.
  • 33 diehards lasting between 2,000 and 2,099 generations.
  • 23 diehards lasting between 2,100 and 2,199 generations.
  • 10 diehards lasting between 2,200 and 2,299 generations.
  • 3 diehards lasting between 2,300 and 2,399 generations.
  • 2 diehards lasting between 2,400 and 2,499 generations.
  • 1 diehard lasting between 2,500 and 2,599 generations.
  • 1 diehard lasting between 2,800 and 2,899 generations.
  • 7,557,834,683 soups with a final population of between 3,000 and 3,099.
  • 6,337,641,858 soups with a final population of between 3,100 and 3,199.
  • 5,351,429,484 soups with a final population of between 3,200 and 3,299.
  • 4,661,812,151 soups with a final population of between 3,300 and 3,399.
  • 3,869,975,034 soups with a final population of between 3,400 and 3,499.
  • 3,312,509,753 soups with a final population of between 3,500 and 3,599.
  • ...
  • 7 soups with a final population of between 20,000 and 20,099.
  • 3 soups with a final population of between 20,100 and 20,199.
  • 1 soup with a final population of between 20,200 and 20,299.
  • 1 soup with a final population of between 20,400 and 20,499.
  • 1 soup with a final population of between 20,500 and 20,599.
  • 1 soup with a final population of between 20,800 and 20,899.
  • 1 soup with a final population of between 21,100 and 21,199.
  • 1 soup with a final population of between 21,400 and 21,499.
  • 2 soups with a final population of between 22,100 and 22,199.
  • 1 soup with a final population of between 24,700 and 24,799.
  • ...
  • 1 soup with a final population of between 78,300 and 78,399, caused by a switch engine pair that gets killed by a glider.
  • 23 soups with a final population of between 80,800 and 80,899, caused by a switch engine pair that gets killed by a glider; this corresponds with methuselah_128k.
  • 1 soup with a final population of between 83,300 and 83,399, caused by a switch engine pair that gets killed by a glider.
  • 1 soup with a final population of between 84,600 and 84,699, caused by a switch engine pair that gets killed by a glider.
  • 1 soup with a final population of between 85,700 and 85,799, caused by a switch engine pair that gets killed by a glider.
  • 1 soup with a final population of between 88,400 and 88,499, caused by a switch engine pair that gets killed by a glider.
• Other patterns:
  • 4183 Infinite-growth patterns (including the pufferfish and a symmetric variation of Blinker puffer 1)

Patterns seen but not properly recognized by the client (see Limitations below) include a D8_1-symmetric variant of the p29 pre-pulsar shuttle.

Plots

Scatter plot of total still life counts vs. populations in B3/S23 (higher symmetries) as of July 15, 2017.

Scatter plot of distinct still life counts vs. populations in B3/S23 (higher symmetries) as of July 15, 2017; the blue line indicates the total number of distinct still lifes per population ( A019473).

Slow salvos

Catagolue started collecting data on objects created by slow salvos on January 13, 2017, using the SS pseudo-symmetry; data was generated by the HoneySearch utility.

As of April 27, 2019, slow salvos have yielded a total of at least 556,856,180,742 objects of 2,667 distinct types.

Click on "Expand" to the right to view full slow salvo statistics.

• Still lifes:
  • All still lifes up to 10 bits.
  • 43 of the 46 11-bit still lifes.
  • 96 of the 121 12-bit still lifes.
  • 144 of the 240 13-bit still lifes.
  • 254 of the 619 14-bit still lifes.
  • 292 of the 1,353 15-bit still lifes.
  • 323 of the 3,286 16-bit still lifes.
  • 296 of the 7,773 17-bit still lifes.
  • 284 of the 19,044 18-bit still lifes.
  • 231 of the 45,759 19-bit still lifes.
  • 207 of the 112,243 20-bit still lifes.
  • 127 of the 273,188 21-bit still lifes.
  • 126 of the 672,172 22-bit still lifes.
  • 59 of the 1,646,147 23-bit still lifes.
  • 34 of the 4,051,732 24-bit still lifes.
  • 14 of the 9,971,377 25-bit still lifes.
  • 14 of the 24,619,307 26-bit still lifes.
  • 5 of the 60,823,008 27-bit still lifes.
  • 6 of the 150,613,157 28-bit still lifes.
  • 3 of the 926,068,847 30-bit still lifes.
  • 1 of the 2,299,616,637 31-bit still lifes.
  • 2 of the 5,716,948,683 32-bit still lifes.
  • 1 40-bit still life.
• Oscillators:
  • 49 period 2 oscillators.

Plots

Scatter plot of total still life counts vs. populations in B3/S23 (slow salvos) as of July 15, 2017.

Scatter plot of distinct still life counts vs. populations in B3/S23 (slow salvos) as of July 15, 2017; the blue line indicates the total number of distinct still lifes per population ( A019473).

Other rules

Catagolue also collects census data on various rules other than Conway's Game of Life. In practice, only non-exploding rules can reasonably be investigated unless a certain symmetry can be assured to never explode.

As of January 15, 2019, Catagolue officially supports the following types of cellular automata:

• Arbitrary outer-totalistic rules (range 1 to 5).
• Isotropic non-totalistic rules. (in Hensel notation)
• Isotropic von Neumann neighbourhood rules. (implicitly by isotropic non-totalistic Moore neighbourhood rules)
• Larger than Life rules. (up to range 7)
• Totalistic and isotropic hexagonal neighbourhood rules.
• Generations variants of all rules listed above.
• Outer-totalistic B0 rules with two states.
• BSFKL rules.
• Deficient rules.
• Extended Generations rules.
• Custom Golly ruletables.

20,644 rules have been investigated at as of June 2, 2026, including the following close Life variants:

• B3/S238 (EightLife)
• B36/S23 (HighLife)
• B368/S238 (LowDeath)
• B38/S23 (Pedestrian Life)
• B38/S238 (HoneyLife)
• B35/S23 (Grounded Life)
• B3/S2-i34q (tlife)
• B36/S2-i34q (tHighLife)
• B37/S2-i34q (tDryLife)
• B38/S2-i34q (tpedestrianlife)

Other notable rules investigated include:

• B3/S12 (Flock)
• B3/S13 (LowLife)
• B345/S5 (Long Life)
• B36/S125 (2×2)
• B3678/S34678 (Day & Night)
• B368/S245 (Morley)
• B2-a/S12 (Just Friends)
• B2ci3ai4c8/S02ae3eijkq4iz5ar6i7e (Snowflakes)
• R5,C0,M1,S34..58,B34..45,NM (Bosco's Rule)

A cached list of all rule-symmetry combinations investigated, sorted by last update, is also available.

Haul verification

Hauls for official censuses of Life-like rules (except B3/S2) with at least one trillion objects are subject to statistical verification and peer review before being committed in order to avoid false data being added to the census. As of March 12, 2024, this includes G1, G2_1, G2_2, G2_4, i4x64, and all official apgsearch-supported CPU symmetries (excluding gutter symmetries) in Conway's Game of Life as well as C1 censuses for Life-like rules B38/S23 (Pedestrian Life), B3/S238 (EightLife), B38/S238 (HoneyLife), B36/S125 (2×2), B3/S01367, B35/S136, B35/S23 (Grounded Life), B3/S12 (Flock), and B3/S01357.

Note that B3/S2, despite having more than a trillion objects, has verification disabled. This is because there are relatively few but extremely common objects, so the verification system (Parmenides) mistook rare objects and new discoveries as being fake.

Catagolue as a generic pattern inventory

Although primarily used for soup-searching in practice, Catagolue can be used as a generic pattern inventory/warehouse, as shown by e.g. the slow salvo data it collected (see above). Users are encouraged come up with their own rulestrings, symmetry types, and object codes:

[Catagolue] basically accepts anything that you choose to pass off as a rule name, symmetry type, and apgcode. If you make a search program which produces haul files for your favourite CA, then Catagolue will happily build a distributed census [...]

The search program needn't even be a soup search: if you have a depth-first search program such as gfind or zfind, and you have a correspondence between positions in the search tree and alphanumeric strings (where prefixes correspond to ancestors), then you can conduct a distributed search for (say) width-20 c/6 spaceships using the existing Catagolue framework. If you incorporate all of zfind's command-line hyperparameters (period, offset, memory size, etc.) into the beginning of this string, then you can simply have a 'symmetry' called zfind whose tabulations will include things such as xq7, xq10, xq19 (potentially!), etc. And this will work without changing Catagolue in any way.

— Adam P. Goucher

This is simplified by the stdin symmetries of apgsearch, which accept RLEs from standard input to be used in lieu of random soups. Arie Paap found a c/4 diagonal tubstretcher in this manner by piping the output of ikpx into apgsearch. This was notable in that the tubstretcher could neither be found by ikpx (which can only find spaceships) nor apgsearch (searching random soups) in isolation. ikpx 2.2 natively supports the uploading of search results, including both completed and the resulting ash of partial results, to the ikpx2_stdin symmetry via apgsearch, a feature which John Winston Garth used to find a period-21 weekender tagalong known as doo-dah.

Glider syntheses

Also see: Tutorials/Glider syntheses#Submitting syntheses to Catagolue

Catagolue contains a database of the cheapest known glider syntheses of various objects (including pseudo-objects) retrieved from both Shinjuku and LifeWiki, and displays them on the respective object page. A list of objects for which syntheses are available is compiled in the synthesis-costs symmetry of B3/S23.

The "Syntheses" page of Catagolue transcludes the synthesis-costs census and also includes a text box in which users can submit synthesis components in RLE form to be added to Catagolue's readsynth queue. These RLE files are automatically parsed and interpreted by Catagolue's six times-daily update process, and added to the site if they contain new or improved syntheses.

Glider guns

Catagolue also features a database of both pseudo-period and true-period glider guns, currently located in the gun and guntrue tabulations of synthesis-costs respectively. Bounding box reductions to these guns can also be submitted through the submission box.

Contributor engagement

Contributors to Catagolue have user pages tracking their contributions to the main Conway Life census, B3/S23/C1. In addition to providing an overview of number of objects submitted recently compared to other users, user pages list important discoveries and awarded badges.

Users are credited for discoveries if they find one of the first 20 occurrences of an interesting object: any spaceship (other than the glider), any oscillator, any linear growth pattern, or any sufficiently large (≥30-bit) still life.

The following badges are currently awarded for contributions to B3/S23/C1 and B3/S23/G1:

• Conchita: find a soup containing a phoenix.
• Gemini: discover a new twin bees shuttle variant.
• Gigamyriad: contribute 10¹³ objects.
• Hitchhiker: find a soup containing a Kok's galaxy.
• Limitless: observe a new natural infinite-growth pattern.
• Loafer: discover a natural loafer.
• Monarchist: discover a new queen bee shuttle variant.
• Sprotsmanship: contribute one third of a trillion objects to a different rule.
• Trillionaire: contribute one trillion objects.
• Voyager: find one of the first twenty occurrences of a spaceship.

Backups

Catagolue census data for the main Conway Life census, B3/S23/C1, is backed up remotely every day at 17:29; the first such backup was made on September 24, 2015. For other symmetries or rules, a remote backup may be instigated manually by calling the backupcron endpoint, with the desired rule and symmetry. Remote backups can be viewed by appending the date (in ISO 8601 format) to the main census URL.

Backups of the synthesis-costs census are automatically made three times a month, specifically on dates ending with a "5", and can be accessed using the year-month-day method.

Local backups of Catagolue census data may be made by calling the textcensus endpoint for the desired rule and symmetry. The list of objects returned can be sorted by object frequency, but this should be avoided when possible to reduce server load. It is also possible to restrict objects returned to a certain prefix, or to query the number of objects, grouped by prefix and including a total.

Limitations

Also see: apgsearch#Limitations

Server

Catagolue does not accept hauls exceeding 1 MiB; additionally, hauls must contains a minimum of 10,000 soups or 250,000 objects.

Each tabulation on Catagolue also has a maximum uncompressed size of 32 MB.

Web frontend

Although Catagolue verifies that an object in a given rule behaves as specified by its code, the site makes no attempt to reject non-canonical codes (e.g. xp2_222 rather than xp2_7 for the blinker); furthermore, the site accepts various anomalous prefixes (e.g. xp0 and xq0). No attempt is made to normalize or reject anomalous rules (e.g. "b33s23"), although a feature is planned to clear out censuses which do not adhere to the Catagolue naming conventions.

Catagolue's hashsoup functionality, used for retrieving sample soups from the database, only recognizes official square grid symmetries and D2_xo, and defaults to C1 for all others. Soups with symmetries exclusive to the hexagonal grid (i.e. containing C3, C6, D6, or D12) must instead be reconstructed using lifelib.

See also

• Related topics:
  • History of Catagolue
  • Catagolue naming conventions
  • apgsearch
  • apgcode
• Lists of common objects:
  • Most common objects on Catagolue
  • List of common still lifes
  • List of common oscillators
  • List of natural spaceships
  • List of common objects by symmetry
  • Catagolue reports quick reference
• Other censuses:
  • Achim Flammenkamp's census
  • Andrzej Okrasinski's census
  • Online Life-Like CA Soup Search
• Tutorials:
  • Tutorials/Contributing to Catagolue

External links

• Catagolue homepage
• Catagolue homepage (alternate; not blocked in mainland China)
• Source code for the Catagolue backend

• Catagolue Discussion Thread (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums

• Catagolue Oddities (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums

• Catagolue at the Life Lexicon

Results

• Census for B3/S23/C1
• Statistics for B3/S23/C1

• Soup search results (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums

• Soup search results in rules other than Conway's Life (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums

Client software

• apgmera (apgsearch 3.x) / apgluxe (apgsearch 4.x / 5.x) code repository
• lifelib code repository

• apgsearch v5.0 (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums

• apgsearch v4.0 (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums

• apgsearch v3.1 (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums

• apgsearch v2.2 (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums

• apgsearch v1.0 (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums

• apgsearch: a high-performance soup searcher (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums (original discussion thread)

• Hacking apgsearch (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums

Unofficial browser extension

• Catagolue browser extension (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums

• Arie Paap (April 29, 2019). Re: Catagolue browser extension (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums (Firefox version)

Bots

• Catglue, a program for reporting discoveries and rare occurrences in Life censuses to the Conwaylife Lounge written by dani
• Unofficial Twitter bot operated by Ivan Fomichev (albeit has not been operational since 2018-10-27)
• Twitter bot (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums )