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ITIS

Federal taxonomy: names, authors, and TSNs

🔭 Science & SpaceUNMONITORED
AUTH NONECORS ✗AGENT ?HTTPS ✓COMMERCIAL ?

The Integrated Taxonomic Information System is a U.S. government database of scientific names for plants, animals, fungi, and microbes. Its JSON web service matches a search term to taxa, returning each name's author, validity, and taxonomic serial number. Authoritative and free to query.

—HOW IT'S SCORED ⓘ
Docs ↗
Status badge · for your READMEshipapis health badge: — · unmonitored
ON PROBE SCHEDULE

We probe a documented GET and expect 2xx JSON — full uptime and health score. Open provider docs ↗

Uptime historystarts after first probe

On our probe schedule. Uptime charts appear after the first check lands.

Example responsefrom provider docs — not verified by us
GET https://www.itis.gov/ITISWebService/jsonservice/getITISTermsFromScientificName?srchKey=Tardigrada

{
  "class": "gov.usgs.itis.itis_service.data.SvcItisTermList",
  "itisTerms": [
    {
      "author": "(Ehrenberg, 1832)",
      "nameUsage": "valid",
      "scientificName": "Rotaria tardigrada",
      "tsn": "58274"
    }
  ]
}
Call itcurl · fetch · python
curl "https://www.itis.gov/ITISWebService/jsonservice/getITISTermsFromScientificName?srchKey=Tardigrada"
const res = await fetch("https://www.itis.gov/ITISWebService/jsonservice/getITISTermsFromScientificName?srchKey=Tardigrada");
const data = await res.json();
console.log(data);
import requests

res = requests.get("https://www.itis.gov/ITISWebService/jsonservice/getITISTermsFromScientificName?srchKey=Tardigrada")
print(res.json())

BROWSER CALLS BLOCKED (NO CORS/HTTPS) — USE THE CURL SNIPPET

Endpoints · 3On scheduleFULL DOCS ↗
On schedule — GET /getITISTermsFromScientificName?srchKey=Tardigrada awaits first probe
GET/getITISTermsFromScientificName?srchKey=TardigradaPROBED

Federal taxonomy: names, authors, and TSNs

GET/getITISTermsFromScientificName?limit=5

GetITISTermsFromScientificName — documented GET route.

GET/getITISTermsFromScientificName?page=1

GetITISTermsFromScientificName — documented GET route.

Machine-readable spec

We probe a documented GET and expect 2xx JSON — full uptime and health score. Export includes every documented route below.

Response-shape history

Not tracked yet. Shape-change history starts once this API joins our probe schedule.

ITIS: common questions

Is ITIS free to use?

Yes — ITIS is a free science & space API. Free tier: Free — limits not published. Whether the free tier allows commercial use is unclear — check the provider docs.

Does ITIS need an API key?

No — ITIS needs no API key or signup. You can call it straight away; rate limits still apply (Unpublished).

Can I call ITIS from the browser?

Not directly — ITIS doesn't send browser-friendly CORS headers, so call it from a server or proxy instead. Copy the curl or Python snippet on this page to get started.

Is ITIS up right now?

ITIS is catalogued but not yet on our probe schedule, so we don't publish a live status for it. Check the provider's own status page or docs for its current state.