EOL Application Programming Interface (API) Overview

The EOL API lets you embed the functionality of EOL into your own website and tools, helping to make EOL an ingredient in biodiversity applications.

Please see our Terms of Use for more information on the EOL API. 

For information on linking to EOL, please see Linking to EOL from Your Website.

As we make updates or changes to the API, we will notify you by posting on this page.

If you use the API and want EOL to be aware about your request, generate an API key and make sure to add it to your API calls. Login or create an EOL account to generate an API key from your Preferences page.

Examples

VoLE: Viewer of Life in EOL

VoLE uses the hierarchy_entries api to retrieve taxa as the user browses the classification. For each new taxon, it calls the pages api to fetch text and images. See eolapi.js to see how jQuery ajax methods are used to perform these API requests. Then, take a look at eoltreemap.js to see how the data from the API is used to create a tree structure in memory, which is displayed in a user interface based on the Javascript Infovis Toolkit's Treemap.

The Cell: An Image Library

The Cell: An Image Library uses the EOL search_by_provider api to retrieve the EOL page ids that are associated with a given NCBI Taxon value. The Library contains cellular microscopy images which have been annotated with various ontology terms including NCBI taxons. If a particular cell image's NCBI Taxon term is associated with an EOL page, then an EOL graphical link to that EOL page is displayed next to the NCBI term on that cell image page in the Library.

EOL Field Guides

EOL Field Guides let you see species information based on a particular location. This new tool will provide an opportunity for groups and individuals to create customized lists or views of species information based on content from EOL and other sources. While these are still under development, you can check out some examples of what we are creating. For information about how the EOL Field Guides are using the EOL API, contact Jeff Holmes, Digital Learning Editor.

EarthCape

EarthCape is a set of software tools for recording, management, sharing and publication of biodiversity data. EarthCape currently utilizes the EOL Search API to retrieve EOL IDs for taxonomic names and subsequently show the respective EOL page in a separate tab for the currently selected name. EarthCape is currently in a testing phase; you can contact EarthCape directly for more information.

North American EOL: Chesapeake Bay Basin Species

The North American Encyclopedia of Life (NAEOL) is a demo project that will link detailed pages for each species in North America with a virtual globe that can display species locations and ranges. The NAEOL partnership is attempting to unify datasets that are of value for conservation decision making provided by the United States federal government, state governments, and non-government partner organizations.Some example API calls used by NAEOL (please note-the following API calls return xml, a machine readable data exchange format, with the exception of #4, which makes use of the API's 'format' parameter to structure the response using html):

  1. Shortest response that includes the ITIS TSN: http://www.eol.org/api/pages/1.0/1045608?images=0&text=0&video=0
  2. Getting the best image (includes videos where available): http://eol.org/api/pages/1.0/1045608?images=1&text=0&details=1 (no videos): http://www.eol.org/api/pages/1.0/1045608?images=1&text=0&videos=0&details=1
  3. Common Names: http://eol.org/api/pages/1.0/1045608?common_names=1
  4. Getting the Overview in HTML: http://eol.org/api/pages/1.0/1045608?images=0&details=1&subjects=TaxonBiology&format=html
  5. General Description in XML (trusted content only): http://www.eol.org/api/pages/1.0/1045608?images=0&details=1&subjects=GeneralDescription&vetted=1
  6. Distribution in XML: http://eol.org/api/pages/1.0/1045608?images=0&details=1&subjects=Distribution
  7. Conservation (Note that the SPM has both 'Conservation' and 'ConservationStatus' and we grab either in this call): http://eol.org/api/pages/1.0/1045608?images=0&details=1&subjects=ConservationStatus|Conservation
  8. Putting it all together in one call: http://eol.org/api/pages/1.0/1045608?common_names=1&images=1&text=75&details=1&subjects=TaxonBiology|GeneralDescription|Distribution|ConservationStatus|Conservation