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CatalogueOfLife

The most complete authoritative list of the world's species, maintained by hundreds of global taxonomists
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Actions12

  • Decision Actions
  • Estimate Actions
  • Name Actions
  • Name Usage Actions
  • Name Usage Search Actions
  • Name Usage Suggest Actions
  • Reference Actions
  • Source Metadata Actions
  • Synonym Actions
  • Taxon Actions
  • Tree Actions
  • Vernacular Actions

Overview

The node interacts with the Catalogue of Life API, which is a comprehensive and authoritative global species database maintained by taxonomists. Specifically, for the Taxon - Get operation, it retrieves detailed information about taxa (biological classification units) from the dataset.

This node is useful when you want to programmatically access taxonomic data such as species details, classifications, or related metadata. For example, researchers, biodiversity informatics platforms, or ecological applications can use this node to fetch taxon information by ID or to browse taxa with pagination controls.

Properties

Name Meaning
Additional Fields A collection of optional parameters to refine the request:
- ID The unique identifier of the taxon to retrieve.
- Offset The paging offset for results, allowing to skip a number of records (default 0).
- Limit Maximum number of results to return (minimum 1, default 50).

These properties allow users to specify which taxon to get by its ID or to paginate through multiple taxa if no specific ID is provided.

Output

The output is a JSON array containing the response(s) from the Catalogue of Life API for the requested taxon data. Each item in the array corresponds to one API response object representing taxon details.

  • The json field contains the taxon data returned by the API, including all available fields for the taxon.
  • No binary data output is produced by this node.

Dependencies

  • The node makes HTTP GET requests to the Catalogue of Life API endpoint at https://api.checklistbank.org/dataset/3LR/taxon.
  • No explicit credentials or API keys are required according to the source code.
  • The node relies on n8n's built-in HTTP request helper to perform API calls.

Troubleshooting

  • Empty or missing results: Ensure that the provided Taxon ID is correct and exists in the Catalogue of Life dataset.
  • API rate limits or downtime: If the API is unreachable or returns errors, check network connectivity or the status of the Catalogue of Life service.
  • Invalid parameter values: Make sure limit is at least 1 and offset is non-negative.
  • Unexpected response format: Confirm that the API endpoint URL has not changed and that the node version is up to date.

Links and References

This summary focuses exclusively on the Taxon - Get operation as requested.

Discussion