🦋 GBIF Scraper: Species & Wildlife Occurrence Data

The GBIF Scraper extracts species taxonomy, wildlife occurrence records and dataset registry entries from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Search by scientific name or taxon key, filter by country, year, area (bounding box or WKT polygon), IUCN category and photos, and get up to 92 columns: full taxonomy, GPS coordinates with uncertainty, institution, license and photo URLs. Monitor new records with a seen-id store. Export CSV, Excel, JSON or XML. No login, no API key.

The GBIF Scraper reads the official, open GBIF API, the largest open biodiversity database in the world (about 3.96 billion occurrence records from museums, iNaturalist, eBird and thousands of institutions, counted live on 2026-10-03). A single query such as Panthera onca in Brazil returns 96,549 georeferenced records. It has three row types, set by recordType: occurrence, species and dataset. It is built for ecologists, GIS analysts, conservation NGOs, data journalists and students.

🔎 What does the GBIF Scraper do?

• Occurrences for scientific names, GBIF taxon keys, or a whole area with no names, filtered by country, years, basis of record, continent, IUCN Red List category (including Threatened), institution, dataset, photos and coordinates.
• Area search with a boundingBox or geometryWkt polygons.
• Species backbone search by common or scientific name, resolving synonyms to the accepted name.
• Dataset registry search: title, DOI, type, license, publisher and record count.
• Monitoring with updatedSince and onlyNew. Duplicates are skipped and errors or empty runs are never charged.

📋 What data can you extract from GBIF?

Output has 92 keys across the three row types. Fields GBIF does not provide are left out of the row, not returned as empty columns. The dataset has four views: Records, Occurrences, Species and Datasets.

Record type	Fields
Occurrence (recordType: occurrence)	Identity: occurrenceKey, catalogNumber, taxonKey, speciesKey. Taxonomy: species, scientificName, acceptedScientificName, taxonRank, kingdom to genus. Place: latitude, longitude, coordinateUncertaintyInMeters, country, countryCode, stateProvince, locality, elevation. Time: eventDate, year, month, day. Source: basisOfRecord, datasetName, institutionCode, recordedBy, license, rightsHolder. Biology: individualCount, sex, lifeStage, iucnRedListCategory. Media: imageUrl, mediaUrls, mediaCount, imageCreator, imageLicense. Quality: issues, modified, lastInterpreted, url
Species (recordType: species)	taxonKey, scientificName, canonicalName, authorship, rank, taxonomicStatus, isSynonym, acceptedScientificName, acceptedTaxonKey, kingdom to genus, parent, basionym, publishedIn, nomenclaturalStatus, isExtinct, numDescendants, url. When GBIF has them: commonNames, threatStatuses, habitats, numOccurrences
Dataset (recordType: dataset)	datasetKey, datasetName, datasetType, description, doi, license, publishingOrganization, publishingCountry, recordCount, keywords, publicationDate, modified, url

Known limit: stateProvince can show the legacy placeholder Not Disclosed where GBIF has no value.

📊 Sample output

Abridged first row of a cloud run (jaguar occurrences in Brazil since 2020, photos only). family, genus, countryCode and institutionCode were added by hand; the rest is the real row.

{
  "recordType": "occurrence",
  "occurrenceKey": 6129956519,
  "species": "Panthera onca",
  "scientificName": "Panthera onca (Linnaeus, 1758)",
  "family": "Felidae",
  "genus": "Panthera",
  "latitude": -20.061761,
  "longitude": -56.797438,
  "country": "Brazil",
  "countryCode": "BR",
  "stateProvince": "Mato Grosso do Sul",
  "eventDate": "2026-01-04T15:31",
  "year": 2026,
  "basisOfRecord": "HUMAN_OBSERVATION",
  "datasetName": "iNaturalist research-grade observations",
  "institutionCode": "iNaturalist",
  "recordedBy": "Miguel A. Paixão",
  "imageUrl": "https://inaturalist-open-data.s3.amazonaws.com/photos/626403359/original.jpg",
  "license": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode",
  "url": "https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/6129956519",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-04T04:08:27.826Z"
}

💰 How much does it cost to scrape GBIF?

Pay per event: you pay only for rows delivered to your dataset (lower rates on paid plans).

Event	When it is charged	Free plan	Bronze	Silver	Gold and up
occurrence-record	One wildlife observation delivered	$0.020	$0.01833	$0.01667	$0.015
species-record	One taxon delivered	$0.020	$0.01833	$0.01667	$0.015
dataset-record	One dataset registry row delivered	$0.005	$0.005	$0.005	$0.005

That is $20 per 1,000 rows on Free and $15 on Gold. Worked examples: 1,000 occurrence rows on Free cost 1,000 x $0.02 = $20.00, and on Gold $15.00. 200 species rows plus 800 occurrence rows on Free also cost $20.00. 500 dataset rows cost 500 x $0.005 = $2.50 on any plan. You are not charged for error rows, empty results, duplicates, rows skipped by onlyNew or a failed run. The actor stops cleanly at your maximum charge. Free users get a 10-row preview.

🚀 How to scrape GBIF in 3 steps

1. Enter scientific names (for example Panthera onca), taxon keys, an area, or a species or dataset search.
2. Set optional filters.
3. Click Start, then download CSV, Excel, JSON or XML.

⚙️ Input

Field	What it does
scientificNames, taxonKeys	Names (default ["Panthera onca"]) or GBIF taxon keys for occurrences. Use [] for species, dataset or area-only runs.
speciesQuery, speciesBackboneOnly, speciesRank	Species search by common or scientific name; only the GBIF Backbone Taxonomy; keep one rank such as SPECIES.
datasetQuery, datasetType, datasetPublishingCountry	Dataset registry search; OCCURRENCE, CHECKLIST, SAMPLING_EVENT or METADATA; publisher country code.
country	Two-letter ISO code such as BR, US, CO. Invalid values stop the run before charging.
yearFrom, yearTo	Year range.
boundingBox, geometryWkt	south,west,north,east such as -20,-58,-17,-55; closed POLYGON or MULTIPOLYGON list, longitude first.
continent, basisOfRecord, occurrenceStatus	Continent, evidence type (human observation, preserved specimen, fossil and more), PRESENT or ABSENT.
iucnRedListCategory	THREATENED (CR, EN, VU), or one of CR, EN, VU, NT, LC, DD, EX, EW, NE.
datasetKeys, institutionCode	Occurrences from specific datasets; one institution code such as NHMUK.
onlyWithCoordinates, onlyWithPhotos, excludeGeospatialIssues	Map-ready records only (default on); records with an image; drop coordinate problems.
updatedSince	A date such as 2026-09-01, or 7d, 4w, 3m, 1y, today. Filters by lastInterpreted.
onlyNew, stateKey, resetSeen	Deliver only unseen rows; monitor memory name; forget what was seen.
maxItems	Row limit across all row types. Default 10, maximum 1,000,000.

Example: threatened preserved specimens inside a polygon.

{
  "scientificNames": [],
  "geometryWkt": ["POLYGON((-58 -20, -55 -20, -55 -17, -58 -17, -58 -20))"],
  "basisOfRecord": "PRESERVED_SPECIMEN",
  "iucnRedListCategory": "THREATENED",
  "maxItems": 100
}

📦 Output and empty results

Every input is validated before the first request; an invalid country, bounding box, WKT or date range fails immediately with no charge. A search that matches nothing finishes as succeeded with no charge. If the GBIF API is unreachable and nothing was delivered, the run fails.

⚖️ GBIF Scraper vs alternatives

Read from the public Apify Store pages on 2026-10-10.

	This actor	chrisp1211	logiover
Modes	Occurrences, species, dataset registry	Occurrences	Occurrences, species match and search, datasets
Occurrence fields	92 keys over all row types, with media and issues	About 40 fields	26 fields
Area, IUCN and monitor	Bounding box, WKT, IUCN filter, only-new	Not stated in their listing	IUCN not a filter; area and monitor not stated
Price per 1,000 rows	$20 Free, $15 Gold	$0.40	From $1.50

Two other actors read the same day: hipersoft (from $0.0004 per record, species and occurrences, no area or dataset search stated) and openclawmara ($0.005 per record, species with optional occurrences and an IUCN field). We are the most expensive in this group, between 4 and 50 times their occurrence prices. The data is open and free from GBIF, so for a few plain fields at scale a cheaper actor is the better buy. Our extra price pays for area and IUCN filters, taxon keys, synonym handling, license and photo columns, issue flags and a seen-id monitor.

🧭 Use cases

Species distribution datasets for conservation reports, threatened-species evidence for impact assessments, GIS map layers, licensed photos for editorial work, weekly regional monitoring, and citable datasets with DOIs.

🔌 Run the GBIF Scraper via API and integrations

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/RecordsData~gbif-biodiversity-scraper/runs?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"scientificNames":["Panthera onca"],"country":"BR","maxItems":100}'

Schedule it on Apify, send results to Google Sheets, Make, Zapier or n8n.

🤖 GBIF Scraper MCP server for AI agents

AI agents can call this Actor through the Apify MCP server at https://mcp.apify.com?tools=RecordsData/gbif-biodiversity-scraper.

Add this to your MCP client configuration (Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=RecordsData/gbif-biodiversity-scraper"
    }
  }
}

Example agent prompt:

Use the GBIF Scraper to get 50 photographed jaguar (Panthera onca) occurrences in Brazil since 2020, then tell me which states have the most sightings.

Tool description: choose this Actor when an agent needs species taxonomy, georeferenced wildlife observations or the GBIF dataset registry, filtered by country, year, area, IUCN category, record type or photos.

🛡️ Is it legal to scrape GBIF?

The actor calls the official public GBIF API at a respectful rate and returns open biodiversity data. Each row carries its license (usually Creative Commons) and dataset rows carry a DOI. Cite GBIF and the source datasets in publications and follow each license's attribution terms. Collector and determiner names (recordedBy, identifiedBy) appear as published by the source dataset.

❓ Frequently asked questions

🦋 What is an occurrence record in GBIF?

In GBIF, an occurrence record is one documented presence of a species at a place and time, such as an iNaturalist photo, a museum specimen or a sensor detection. The GBIF Scraper returns each one as a row with coordinates, date, dataset and observer, and its basisOfRecord field tells you which kind of evidence it is.

🌍 How many GBIF records can I get per species?

GBIF serves up to 100,000 occurrence records per search, and the GBIF Scraper inherits that API limit and logs a warning when GBIF reports more matches. For a species with more records, narrow the query by country, year range or area and run it several times. For example, Panthera onca in Brazil alone matched 96,549 records on 2026-10-03.

📷 Are the GBIF photos free to use?

Each row from the GBIF Scraper carries a license field, an imageUrl and, where GBIF has them, imageCreator and imageLicense. Licenses are usually Creative Commons, but photos are not free of conditions: respect the license shown on the row and credit the observer and the source dataset. Cite GBIF and the original datasets in any publication that uses the data.

🔑 Do I need a GBIF account or API key for the GBIF Scraper?

No. The GBIF Scraper uses the official open GBIF API, so you do not need a GBIF account, a login or an API key. You only need an Apify account to run the actor, and a free Apify account includes monthly credit plus a 10-row preview of the GBIF Scraper output.

🧬 Why do GBIF Scraper species rows have no common names?

Common names, threat statuses, habitats and occurrence counts are included in a GBIF Scraper species row only when GBIF returns them for that taxon. When GBIF has no value, the field is omitted instead of being returned as an empty column. Core taxonomy such as kingdom, family, genus and rank is always present.

0️⃣ Why did my GBIF scrape return 0 results?

Check the spelling of the scientific name, remove the country or year filter, or untick Only with photos in the GBIF Scraper. A search with no matches finishes as succeeded with a status message and no charge. Also remember that speciesQuery searches the taxonomy backbone, scientificNames pulls observations, and datasetQuery searches the dataset registry.

💵 Will I be charged for failed GBIF Scraper runs?

No. The GBIF Scraper charges only for rows delivered to your dataset. Error rows, empty results, duplicate GBIF records and failed runs create no charge. You can also set a maximum charge per run, and the GBIF Scraper stops cleanly when it is reached, so the cost of any run is bounded in advance.

🆓 Can I try the GBIF Scraper for free?

Yes. Free Apify users get a 10-row preview of the GBIF Scraper, which is enough to check the fields, coordinates and photo URLs on your own query. Paid Apify plans unlock larger runs, up to 1,000,000 rows, and lower per-row prices on the Bronze, Silver and Gold tiers.

🗺️ How do I search GBIF by area, and what are the limits?

Use boundingBox as south,west,north,east, or geometryWkt with one or more closed POLYGON or MULTIPOLYGON shapes, longitude first. Leave the names empty to sweep the whole area. The GBIF request line allows about 4 KB, roughly 140 polygon vertices, and a bounding box cannot cross longitude 180. For that, use two polygons. The actor rejects oversized filters before charging.

🗂️ Can I search the GBIF dataset registry?

Yes. Set datasetQuery, and optionally datasetType and datasetPublishingCountry, and the GBIF Scraper returns rows with recordType dataset: title, DOI, type, license, publishing organization and record count. Use the datasetKey with the datasetKeys input to pull occurrences from one dataset. Dataset rows cost a flat $0.005 each ($5 per 1,000).

🔔 How do I monitor GBIF for new records?

Set updatedSince, for example 7d, to keep records GBIF indexed or re-processed in that window, based on lastInterpreted. For true new-only delivery, turn on onlyNew and give the schedule a stateKey. Seen ids are skipped before the row cap and before charging. Use resetSeen to start over. Note that updatedSince alone also returns old records GBIF re-interpreted.

🔁 What happens with synonyms and old names?

When you search a synonym, such as Felis onca, the GBIF Scraper returns the species row with isSynonym true and the accepted scientific name and key resolved, here Panthera onca. Occurrence rows carry both scientificName as recorded and acceptedScientificName. Set speciesBackboneOnly to get one reconciled name per taxon instead of every checklist.

🐆 Can I filter by IUCN threat status?

Yes. Set iucnRedListCategory to THREATENED to keep taxa in CR, EN or VU together, or pick one category such as VU, NT or LC. The filter applies to occurrence searches, and each occurrence row also carries its iucnRedListCategory when GBIF has it. Species rows add threatStatuses, which can list regional assessments.

⚖️ Can I reuse the records commercially?

Check the license on each row. GBIF records are mostly CC0, CC BY or CC BY-NC, and CC BY-NC forbids commercial use. The rows carry license, rightsHolder and the dataset DOI, so you can filter and cite correctly. This is general information, not legal advice.

🛟 Support

Found a bug or a missing field? Open the Issues tab on this actor's page, or write to contact.punkrecordsdata@gmail.com. Custom solutions are available on request.

Last updated: 2026-10-11