Evolutionary processes such as speciation happens gradually over time
making such processes time-dependant. Many studies conducted over the
past two decades have aimed at providing accurate, fossil-calibrated,
estimates of the divergence times of both extant and extinct species in
most lineages of the tree of life, including fish, amphibians, reptiles,
birds, and mammals. Data from more than 4 000 of these studies are now
publicly available from a central time tree resource and provide
opportunities of retrieving divergence times, evolutionary timelines,
and time trees in various formats to enhance scientific investigations
of evolution. There is, however, still limited functionality when
studying large lists of species that would require the batch retrieval
of data. To overcome this, a PYTHON package called Python Automated
Retrieval of Time Tree data, abbreviated as PAReTT, was created to
facilitate the interaction with the time tree resource when working with
species lists. This package was recently used in a meta-analysis of
candidate genes to study migration genetics and was able to successfully
retrieve data for forty or more species to illustrate the relationship
between divergence times and genetic data. The PAReTT package is freely
available for download from GitHub to implement in PYTHON or as a
pre-compiled Windows executable, with extensive documentation on the
package available on the PAReTT GitHub wiki pages on dependencies,
installation, and implementation of the various functions.