Cortexa research tool·biomedical·col

CoL Search Species

Search the Catalogue of Life (CoL) for species and other taxa by scientific name. CoL is the global index of all known species, compiled from 165+ taxonomic databases covering ~2 million species. Returns taxon IDs, accepted names, ranks, classification hierarchy, and taxonomic status. Use rank parameter to filter by taxonomic level (species, genus, family, order, class, phylum, kingdom).

Livelast probed 2026-05-01 01:00Z· 685msCortexa

Status

The most recent probe succeeded. Safe to call from the agent today.

Last probed: 1d ago
Last success: 1d ago
Last latency: 685ms

Schema

JSON Schema the agent (or your API call) must match.

{
  "properties": {
    "limit": {
      "description": "Maximum number of results to return (default 10, max 1000)",
      "type": [
        "integer",
        "null"
      ]
    },
    "offset": {
      "description": "Offset for pagination",
      "type": [
        "integer",
        "null"
      ]
    },
    "q": {
      "description": "Scientific name to search for (e.g., 'Homo sapiens', 'Panthera leo', 'Arabidopsis thaliana')",
      "type": "string"
    },
    "rank": {
      "description": "Filter by taxonomic rank: 'species', 'genus', 'family', 'order', 'class', 'phylum', 'kingdom'",
      "type": [
        "string",
        "null"
      ]
    }
  },
  "required": [
    "q"
  ],
  "type": "object"
}

Examples (1)

Default CoL Search Species call

public-safeinput

{
  "q": ""
}

Expected response keys: success

Anonymous-safe example. Rate-limited; no sign-in required.

Identifiers

Catalog ID: tu_CoL_search_species
Tool name: CoL_search_species
Added: 2026-05-01 00:58Z
Tags: tooluniverse

CoL Search Species

Livelast probed 2026-05-01 01:00Z· 685msCortexa

Schema

JSON Schema the agent (or your API call) must match.

{ "properties": { "limit": { "description": "Maximum number of results to return (default 10, max 1000)", "type": [ "integer", "null" ] }, "offset": { "description": "Offset for pagination", "type": [ "integer", "null" ] }, "q": { "description": "Scientific name to search for (e.g., 'Homo sapiens', 'Panthera leo', 'Arabidopsis thaliana')", "type": "string" }, "rank": { "description": "Filter by taxonomic rank: 'species', 'genus', 'family', 'order', 'class', 'phylum', 'kingdom'", "type": [ "string", "null" ] } }, "required": [ "q" ], "type": "object" }