GBIF Taxon Status Change Evidence API

Check selected public GBIF name-usage records by exact numeric key. Return scientific/canonical names, rank and taxonomic status, accepted/parent keys when supplied, dataset UUID and declared kingdom-to-genus classification. Useful for taxon-ID inventory QA and detecting selected taxonomic record changes in a scientific pipeline.

At most5 distinct keys, one api.gbif.org/v1/species/KEY request each. The returned key and dataset UUID are checked. Missing accepted/parent values remain null; the Actor does not infer accepted-name relationships, traverse them or resolve names. Different dataset name usages can disagree. A record's status is a registry declaration, not an independent biological classification. No species identification from photos, occurrence data, people/collector data, geolocation, maps, conservation/medical advice, images, specimen downloads or whole-taxonomy crawl. Scientific-name authorship can appear within the provider scientificName string; no author/person profile is requested. Large occurrence use cases need GBIF download services, which this Actor does not call.

Quick start

{"taxonKeys": [2435099, 2435194]}

Pricing and budget

0.0007 USD per emitted taxon record observation (0.7 USD per1000), plus0.005 USD startup at default256MB. Higher memory can multiply startup events; check effective Store pricing. Failed/empty sources do not emit result charges; startup can still apply. At zero result budget, input validation occurs but no upstream request is sent, and rowsAvailable is null (unknown). A positive budget can request the bounded source set before output; emission stops at the result cap and complete=false/PARTIAL_BUDGET reports truncation.

Snapshot, integration and limits

Use dataset rows together with OUTPUT and SNAPSHOT. Pass SNAPSHOT.previousHashes as previousHashes in a later run. NO_BASELINE/FIRST_SEEN/UNCHANGED/CHANGED compare only selected metadata including itemKey and sourceUrl; missing records are not deletions. FIRST_SEEN means absent from the supplied baseline. There is no persistent hidden state or automatic polling. Export JSON/CSV/Excel through the default dataset.

API example: POST https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/soilair~gbif-taxon-status-change-evidence-api/runs with your Apify Authorization header and the JSON input above. Poll the returned run; read dataset items and OUTPUT/SNAPSHOT records using its store IDs. Do not place tokens or confidential data in input. No upstream key is needed. Results live in Apify run storage according to retention; no separate analytics service.

Only fixed HTTPS provider endpoints are constructed from validated identifiers. Public-IP DNS validation, pinned connections, TLS hostname verification,2MiB decoded responses, approximately95 seconds of network budget, at most5 same-provider redirects. Official API calls are distinct from website crawling; no arbitrary URLs or HTML pages. No linked documents/files are fetched. Queries are sequential with1-second spacing. Provider403/429 or Retry-After stops later calls; retry instructions are reported and no retry/proxy/circumvention is attempted. Shared IP limits and changes to upstream services can still block runs. Caller must respect provider headers and cache/reduce repeated requests. Text is data and should not be executed.

Developed with AI assistance. Tests and live/cloud comparisons qualify the selected-field contract; they do not prove commercial demand, provider uptime or a legal/license determination. Support: share a run ID and expected fields, without credentials or private material.

References: https://techdocs.gbif.org/en/openapi/v1/species · https://data-blog.gbif.org/post/gbif-species-api/ · https://www.gbif.org/restricted