Catalogue of Life

liveBiologyScience

Global taxonomic index of known species (~2.2M accepted names). Keyless.

8tools
0msauth
free tier50 calls/day

Tools

name_matchrequired: scientific_name

"Is [Panthera leo] a valid scientific name" / "exact match for [Latin binomial]" / "disambiguate homonyms" — exact scientific-name match returning 0 or 1 hit plus close alternatives. Use when you have

Parameters
NameTypeDescription
scientific_namereqstring—
authorshipoptstring—
datasetoptstring—
▶Try it
usagerequired: id

Fetch a single Catalogue of Life name-usage record by its COL ID, returning taxon name, authorship, rank, status (accepted/synonym), and source dataset. Use after search or name_match to retrieve the

Parameters
NameTypeDescription
idreqstring—
datasetoptstring—
▶Try it
taxonrequired: id

Fetch a Catalogue of Life accepted taxon record by its COL taxon ID, returning the accepted concept with name, rank, and authorship. Pair with classification for lineage, children to descend the tree,

Parameters
NameTypeDescription
idreqstring—
datasetoptstring—
▶Try it
classificationrequired: id

"What kingdom / phylum / class / order / family / genus is [species] in" / "taxonomy of [organism]" / "show me the lineage of [animal/plant]" / "where does [species] sit in the tree of life" — returns

Parameters
NameTypeDescription
idreqstring—
datasetoptstring—
▶Try it
vernacularrequired: id

"What's the common name for [Latin binomial]" / "what do people call [scientific name]" / "vernacular names of [species]" — list common/vernacular names (in various languages) for a Catalogue of Life

Parameters
NameTypeDescription
idreqstring—
datasetoptstring—
▶Try it
synonymsrequired: id

"What are the synonyms of [species]" / "old name for [organism]" / "alternative scientific names" — list synonyms (alternative or historical scientific names) currently mapped to a single Catalogue of

Parameters
NameTypeDescription
idreqstring—
datasetoptstring—
▶Try it
childrenrequired: id

"What species are in [genus]" / "all members of [family]" / "species under [order]" / "direct descendants of [taxon]" — list immediate child taxa under a Catalogue of Life parent taxon. Use to walk do

Parameters
NameTypeDescription
idreqstring—
datasetoptstring—
limitoptnumber—
▶Try it

Test with curl

The gateway speaks JSON-RPC 2.0 over HTTP POST. You can test any pack directly from the terminal.

List available tools
bash
curl -X POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/catalogueoflife/mcp \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/list"}'
Call a tool
bash
curl -X POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/catalogueoflife/mcp \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":2,"method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"search","arguments":{"query": "hello"}}}'

Use with the SDK

Install @pipeworx/sdk to call tools from any TypeScript/Node project.

TypeScript
import { Pipeworx } from '@pipeworx/sdk';
const px = new Pipeworx();
const result = await px.call("search", {"query":"example"});
ask_pipeworx
// Or ask in plain English:
const answer = await px.ask("global taxonomic index of known species (~2");