Switch from COL 2012 API to Checklistbank to reduce curator load for new taxa addition

Feature Requests
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1

Platform(s), such as mobile, website, API, other: web

URLs (aka web addresses) of any pages, if relevant: -

Description of need:
A common type of curator flag is “Add new species X” that is missing from inat tree, iNat dogmatically still relies on 2012 COL checklist which is far different than COL checklist of modern days and thus the recourse to create curator flags and increase their workload which could just have been avoided by fixing the code.

Feature request details:
currently iNat relies on COL 2012 checklist endpoint - https://github.com/inaturalist/inaturalist/blob/main/lib/catalogue_of_life.rb

here is an example taxon missing from 2012 list - https://www.catalogueoflife.org/annual-checklist/2012/webservice?name=Ariophanta+sisparica&response=full because there was a taxonomic change in year 2020 which is reflected back on COL post 2020 lists - https://www.catalogueoflife.org/data/taxon/GMWY

now COL itself recommends using checklistbank - https://www.catalogueoflife.org/tools/api

and here is same taxon reflected properly via checklistbank API - https://api.checklistbank.org/dataset/3LR/nameusage/search?q=Ariophanta+sisparica

so time to revamp inat’s Ratatosk to switch to this endpoint!

2

Added my vote, I think this is long overdue.

I would be even more supportive of just ending the ability of users to import taxa from external sources like this one. It was useful in the earlier days of iNaturalist when its internal taxonomy was still very incomplete. But now I think the utility has passed the point of diminishing returns for Curator time and effort.

3

Just adding a backlink to a supportive post in the curator area
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/catalog-of-life-2012-importer/79345

I’m confident that having this updated would be a massive help to diverse users who continually are looking to expand and improve the taxonomy database, many of these folks are not curators. Those and other users are often left with the only option to raise a flag and ask a curator - which often is a simplistic taxa. Personally, i’d prefer to see the valuable skills and specialism of many curators being applied to addressing broader taxonomy changes and updates (like reflecting revisions) not straightforward basics!

Following from jdmore, I’m sure elsewhere on the forum we (various stakeholders) have had discussion(s) about whether the external name importer feature has any merit, or indeed should be deactivated. On this, I am absolutely adamant that at least for arthropods where i’ve likely added a few thousand taxon names myself (both by importer and manually) that the automated import feature still could have great utility - IF it gets updated.

As of 2026, there’s nearly a million more taxon names on the Catalog of Life database [i.e. on core COL26.5] beyond that absurdly outdated 2012 version. Many of us have regular interactions via taxon flags with enthusiastic users who are not curators but continually want to help efforts to build in or update taxon names. Even if just a curator responsibility to “add new taxa”, i find that it’s so much quicker and easier to use the importer to first pull in the core name information, rather than the cumbersome many clicks and box filling of the manual system.

As it stands, only a fraction of the taxon names now in the modern Catalog of Life database can be directly imported, and worse the ‘legacy’ nature of the 2012 database still freely allows many outdated combinations to be pulled in without checks, or old misspellings added that have since been purged, etc.

4

I agree that updating would be best, but if that isn’t possible, it seems like just removing the CoL 2012 import might be preferable to leaving it at this point.

6

Maybe a happy medium would be to restrict its access to only curators going forward.

7

I’ve made an issue to explore the feasibility of this.

Are you saying it’s causing more trouble than it’s worth? Like are people adding taxa they shouldn’t?

8

I paused for other view - the question directed at jdmore, but now i go for reply.

With the importer being so outdated then yes, users are absolutely importing taxa (combinations, misspelling etc) that they shouldn’t. That’s not a reason to delink the system entirely, it can be functional with problems minimised by an update to a modern importer.

I’m sorry, this is obvious to me for an age and i’m increasingly angry about any lack of update

9

Essentially yes, but I do hear the feedback that the functionality is still helpful for curators in some groups, so I’d be in favor of keeping it but making it accessible only to curators. But of course, either way, we should be using the most current possible sources, which COL 2012 no longer is.

10

@tiwane @loarie

Please. Do you guys want me to lay out some example of the MANY cases where the outdated name importer is continually adding needless burden to the workload of taxonomy curation mostly been done by your volunteers? You’ve both done some of the taxonomy curation, and loarie especially a respect worthy workload. I’m glad to hear above from jdmore, and i’m trying not to continually be a broken record on an issue like this, but if you want volunteer curators to do our best to help users with taxonomy issues then please for the love of nature, help us help you, update this thing!

11

Please see my previous post:

No one is against doing this, but switching over isn’t necessarily a simple thing. I’ve made an issue for our engineers to take a look at CoL’s new API and what it would take to make it work on iNat, which would be the first step. The reality is that like any organization we have limited time and resources and need to weigh doing this vs the many other things we need to do to improve and maintain the site. I understand your frustration, but please keep in mind that this is one of many things that we’re doing.

12

Thank-you for pointer to back to your reply above, and adding more detail now.

I also see you’ve been responding to taxon flags recently, so that’s great, and a helpful contribution to taxon curation efforts. I hope with that you have been gaining increased insight to the continued flood of simplistic ‘please add this taxon’ flags, but also ‘please re-graft this misplaced one from the importer’, ‘please fix-up this imported misspelling error’ etc. I respect you’re faced with countless demands on your time, so again i now pause in hope of developments. In return, i ask, please keep in mind that in my view, an update on this setup seems really worthy of some backend time and resources. That’s not only to ‘improve and maintain the site’ but also relieve the needless burden of ‘wasted’ time and resources arising from flagged issues by the community of users - which if i may, are largely being dealt with by the volunteer curators. Our time and efforts for your initiative are valuable too.

13

Yesterday (Aug 2026) on a flagged issue by a user, they highlighted how their attempt resulted in a confusing result to the taxon scheme when they tried simply to add a missing name for their required “Allaphis caricis”. That newly added taxon name was created by the importer as a synonym of another [outdated] taxon name.

For curation actions, resolving this took five steps.
[1] Deleted name only “Allaphis caricis” [Created - on Aug 28, 2026] which had been created by import, but then instead displayed as a synonym under the outdated taxon “Thripsaphis producta ssp. producta”
[2] Deleted name only " “Thripsaphis caricis” [as above, which co-imported]
[3] Inactivated redundant empty existing entry that the import linked onto 1557974- Thripsaphis-producta-producta [Created - on June 24, 2024]
[4] Taxonomic Swap 176736 to inactivate 1557975-Thripsaphis-producta [empty] under /1088964-Allaphis-producta [1 0bs] (where “Thripsaphis-producta” was already a synonym]
[5] Creation of new standalone 1704802-Allaphis-caricis as per request

The automated result of the intended imported happened as their ‘missing taxon’ was a synonym of another fourteen years ago - as in that importer source checklist from 2012.
https://www.catalogueoflife.org/annual-checklist/2012/search/all/key/Allaphis+caricis/match/1
Instead, modern Catalog of Life (Aug. 2026) has the requested ‘missing taxon’ instead as unique and valid, exactly how the user wanted to use that for an observation.

My point here, is to highlight a case where the outdated importer is causing needless burden to volunteer curators. There’s at least another newly flagged issue today where i see part of the problem is outdated taxon names that were imported from this. It’s causing a continual problem for volunteer curators!

14

I’m aiming to continue with occasional comments on issues

Today (early Sept 2026), a user highlighted the addition of taxon name for a butterfly " Limenitis weidermeyerii" as being an orthographic variant - i.e. recognised the different spelling of the(ir) import.

Taxon name Limenitis weidermeyerii Edwards 1861
Had been user imported from
https://www.catalogueoflife.org/annual-checklist/2012/details/species/id/981043

It’s a misspelling. The source database for that (Lepindex) had added a needless extra “r” into this taxon name. In contrast, several authoritative modern sources on American butteflies (e.g. Pelham catalog especially, but also e.g. Savela, etc) recognise the original spellng as Limenitis weidemeyerii Edwards 1861. That other spelling on the outdated CoL 2012 seems simply an old database typo. Could we please stop allowing this system to repeat of errors from fourteen years ago?!
Curator action was straightforward, but yet again required volunteer effort to verify the source of the variant spelling (and why) then implement fix.
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/177521

15

This would be useful for every taxon curator. Science continues to move and every new chiro species described in the past 10-15ish years needs to be hand made.

Most synonyms I’ve experienced with chiros (albeit somewhat rare) can probably be attributed to the outdated COL API being used. Chiros aside, when you think about how this is happening everywhere, not just your own group. The amount of time and inconvenience truly adds up.

16

Thanks for viewpoint on your own experiences with this @zoology123. It’s good to hear you emphasise two sides of burden for those “chiros”, indeed it takes a significant effort to then remove ‘outdated imports’ (ones that became recombinations, synonyms etc) PLUS the need for curators to manually add many others (including current combinations for some of those outdate) for those not in that CoL database way back in 2012.

On the latter point, i’ll say again what i said above "As of 2026, there’s nearly A MILLION MORE taxon names on the [current] Catalog of Life database [i.e. COL26.5]

So again, i ask a further three or so months since the reply above of “I’ve made an issue for our engineers to take a look at CoL’s new API”. Anything new on that?

Then just to continue theme, i add yet another example issue. This from today, this time from the fly family Cecidomyiinae [Gall Midges], closest creatures to those Chironomidae from a curator flagged issue for today.

Here there’s challenge by a fly genus having a shared name [homonym] with an algal genus, which is fully allowable since the dawn of taxonomy.
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/174304-Contarinia
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/1403881-Contarinia

Contarinia kurenzovi. imported Sep 15, 2026, → un-grafted “life”.
Regrafted by curator action under Diptera, Cecidomyiinae, Contarinia Rondani, 1860

Contarinia phellodendrobia imported Sep 15, 2026, mis-grafted under homonym “algae - 1403881-Contarinia”.
Regrafted by curator action under Diptera, Cecidomyiinae, Contarinia Rondani, 1860

[These under a curator flagged taxonomy issue on allied fly genus Asphondylia]

17

I find this humorous because just yesterday coincidentally, I noticed some new observations of what i think may be Gillotia, a chironomid genus with no observations on iNaturalist, no pictures on the internet, barely any mention of it anywhere. Yet there’s also a fungus genus Gillotia i just learned.