Thanks Kathryn

This happens when you provide a classification where the terminal taxa is not known to the backbone taxonomy.

What it returns is the higher node in the tree that matches, and stating it with the “HIGHER_RANK” flag.

Periodically we rebuild the backbone using the best available checklists. If you find cases where this happens the best approach today would be to help register good checklists through which we can build the backbone. The next backbone build is likely to happen within the next 2-3 months.

I hope this helps.

Best wishes,

Tim

From: API-users <api-users-bounces@lists.gbif.org> on behalf of Kathryn Reynolds <K.Reynolds@cabi.org>
Date: Tuesday, 9 July 2019 at 10.59
To: "api-users@lists.gbif.org" <api-users@lists.gbif.org>
Subject: [API-users] rgbif - species match with higher rank

Hi All,

I am using the rgbif package to match up names in a database with the accepted name on gbif (name_lookup). In the output for some instances, the data returned is for the species, and the species exists on GBIF. However, the match type is “higher rank” (see attached file for a sample). I was wondering if anyone could explain to me why this is the case? It seems to be happening most often with bacterial or parasitic species…

Thanks in advance,

Kathryn Reynolds
Junior Data Analyst

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