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High-resolution, easily accessible paleoclimate data are essential for environmental, evolutionary, and ecological studies. The availability of bioclimatic layers derived from climatic simulations representing conditions of the Late Pleistocene and Holocene has revolutionized the study of species responses to Late Quaternary climate change. Yet, integrative studies of the impacts of climate change in the Early Pleistocene and Pliocene–periods in which recent speciation events are known to concentrate–have been hindered by the limited availability of downloadable, user-friendly climatic descriptors. Here we present PaleoClim, a free database of downscaled paleoclimate outputs at 2.5-minute resolution (~ 5 km at equator) that includes surface temperature and precipitation estimates from snapshot-style climate model simulations using HadCM3, a version of the UK Met Office Hadley Centre General Circulation …