API

Search for a name

Resource Uri:

http://gni.globalnames.org/name_strings.xml (xml output)

http://gni.globalnames.org/name_strings.json (json output)

http://gni.globalnames.org/name_strings (html output)

Parameters:

search_term

name pattern you want to search for

search term may include following options:

Examples: “Parus major” “gen:Parus sp:major” “can:Parus maj*” “gen:Parus yr:1822” “au:Lang* yr:1888”

Modifier	Meaning	Explanation	Examples
*	wild card	Search by part of a word	planta*
ns:	name string	Search for literal string from its beginning (other modifiers will be ignored)	ns:parus maj*
can:	canonical form	Search name without authors (other modifiers will be ignored)	can:parus major
uni:	uninomial	Search for higher taxa	uni:parus
gen:	genus	Search by genus epithet of species name	gen:parus
sp:	species	Search by species epithet	sp:major
ssp:	subspecies	Search by infraspecies epithet	ssp:major
au:	author	Search by author word	au:Shipunov
yr:	year	Search by year	yr:2005

Note: can, uni, gen, sp, ssp, au, yr work only for parsed names

Notes:

• some search terms need to be url-escaped
• searches with wildcards cannot be shorter than 3 characters

per_page (default is 30)

number of items per one page (numbers larger than 1000 will be decreased to 1000)

page (default is 1)

page number you want to see.

Search will return ‘next_page’ field if more data exist for the search

callback (optional, takes a string)

For jsonp callback function

Examples

valid

http://gni.globalnames.org/name_strings.xml?search_term=ani*
http://gni.globalnames.org/name_strings.json?search_term=ani*
http://gni.globalnames.org/name_strings.xml?search_term=ani%25
http://gni.globalnames.org/name_strings.xml?search_term=ama*&per_page=3&page=21
http://gni.globalnames.org/name_strings.xml?search_term=animalia&per_page=3&page=21

invalid

-  search string is too short:
http://gni.globalnames.org/name_strings.xml?search_term=a*&per_page=3&page=21

Name Details

Resource Uri:

http://gni.globalnames.org/name_strings/{id}.xml

http://gni.globalnames.org/name_strings/{id}.json

http://gni.globalnames.org/name_strings/{id}

Parameters:

all_records (takes 0 or 1, default is 0)

if all_records is 1, GNI returns all records from all repositories for the name string

callback (optional, takes a string)

For jsonp callback function

Examples:

http://gni.globalnames.org/name_strings/1.xml?all_records=1
http://gni.globalnames.org/name_strings/1.json
http://gni.globalnames.org/name_strings/1

Parsing Scientific Names

Resource Uri:

http://gni.globalnames.org/parsers.xml

http://gni.globalnames.org/parsers.json

Parameters:

names (scientific names separated by semicolon)

callback (optional, takes a string)

For jsonp callback function

Examples

http://gni.globalnames.org/parsers.xml?names=Plantago+minor;Homo+sapiens
http://gni.globalnames.org/parsers.json?names=Plantago+minor;Homo+sapiens&callback=displayNames