This function (Account/System Tools/Lookup taxon IDs for CSV file) looks up latin names in a table (in form of a CSV file) and insert their IDs (unique identifiers) in BioLib into the result file. First line of file is skipped, since it is supposed to contain headers. The first column of input file is called TAXONID and is empty (nonempty lines are skipped). Second column is called LATIN and contains the taxon name to be looked up in BioLib.

Functions tries to locate appropriate taxon in BioLib and if successful, it inserts its ID into the first column, otherwise it is left empty. If multiple taxa by the same name are found, the first column will contain "!!!" text. If the taxon was associated using synonym rather than name marked as valid, the valid name is written into the third column. Fourth column will contain the default vernacular name. Fifth column is used for notes, such as marking the "extinct" taxa.

Function settings:

Search only valid names - by checking this field only scientific names marked as valid in BioLib will be searched.

Automatically split latin name from authority - if latin names in second column contain authority, BioLib can try to split the names and ignore the authority in the taxon name (read more about scientific name splitting).

Taxon filtering - if you wish to narrow the number of searched names, you can pick a taxon ID of a taxonomic group and look up for example only names of plants. This would lower the probability of finding duplicate taxon names, especially in higher taxonomic ranks such as genera.

Function result

This tool can be used for many purposes. You can use this tool to check whether some list of scientific names doesn't contain any misspellings or invalid names, or having a reliable list of scientific names to check whether there are any missing taxa or misspellings in BioLib.

This tool returns CSV file with following columns:
TAXONID - ID of a taxon looked up by LATIN column of the input file. If it is empty, the taxon wasn't find in BioLib. If it contains value !!!, multiple taxa were found under the same name. Using these IDs it is possible to create links to taxon profiles on BioLib.
LATIN - original value in an input file
BIOLIB - name used in BioLib if it is different from name in input file (when taxon was looked up using a synonym)
LANG - vernacular name in default language
NOTE - can contain additional information, such as if the taxon is extinct
NAMEID - ID of a particular scientific name by which was the taxon looked up. This is used for example in data imports such as citation import, where each reference is linked not to taxon as whole, but to specific name, even though it is not used as valid on BioLib..
BAUTHORITY - auhthority in BioLib, if it is different from authority in input file or if the authority column was missing. If the authority is missing in BioLib, field contains a minus character '-'. If the authority differs just by parenthesis, field contains value (+) or (-), depending on whether the parenthesis are in BioLib and not in input file or the other way around.