Member resources

Cambridge pollen preparation protocol · Department of Geography, University of Cambridge

Good for: Understanding what a full preparation actually involves before deciding whether to attempt it or send the sample to a laboratory. Limits: Written for a staffed university laboratory operating under UK COSHH requirements. It assumes a fume hood, institutional training and supervision, and it is not adaptable to a home setting — several steps involve hydrofluoric acid.

Textbook of Pollen Analysis · Originally Munksgaard, later Blackwell and John Wiley & Sons; scanned copy hosted by the Internet Archive

Good for: Building the underlying method properly, rather than assembling it from separate protocols and glossaries. Limits: The linked scan is the 1975 third edition and is borrow-only under controlled digital lending, not a free download; the 1989 fourth edition is the one usually cited and is available only in print. Laboratory safety practice has moved on considerably since either, so do not take its procedures as current guidance.

Neotoma · An international, community-governed consortium of data stewards, funded by the US National Science Foundation

Good for: Placing a fossil pollen record in its stratigraphic and regional context, and seeing how comparable assemblages have been reported. Limits: Palaeoecological rather than identification-focused — it will not help you name a grain. Coverage reflects where researchers have worked, which is heavily weighted toward North America and Europe.

GBIF · Global Biodiversity Information Facility

Good for: Checking that the plant name your determination lands on is current, and seeing where the taxon has actually been recorded. Limits: Not pollen-specific, and the backbone is an aggregation rather than a nomenclatural authority in its own right — for contested names, check a botanical authority as well. Occurrence coverage reflects collection effort, not true distribution.

Atlas of Living Australia · Atlas of Living Australia — hosted by CSIRO, supported by NCRIS, and the Australian node of GBIF

Good for: Confirming that a plant you have determined actually occurs where you found it, and resolving Australian plant names against the national authority. Limits: Australian in scope and in taxonomy — plant names resolve against the Australian Plant Census, so names outside an Australian context are handled less authoritatively here than in POWO or World Flora Online. Occurrence coverage reflects collecting effort, not true distribution.

Catalogue of Life · Catalogue of Life partnership, Species 2000 and contributing taxonomic specialists

Good for: Normalising a proposed name across kingdoms and tracing the specialist source from which the treatment came. Limits: Completeness and update cadence differ among taxonomic groups. The Extended Release is broader but less uniformly scrutinised than the expert-vetted Base Release, and neither identifies a specimen or observation.

GBIF Species Search · Global Biodiversity Information Facility Secretariat and participating data publishers

Good for: Checking synonymy, geographic plausibility and the provenance of published occurrence evidence. Limits: The backbone is a synthetic working taxonomy rather than the final authority for disputed names. Occurrence data can contain errors, duplicates and geographic or collecting bias; a point on the map is not proof of identity or true range.

Atlas of Living Australia · Atlas of Living Australia, hosted by CSIRO and supported by Australia's National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy

Good for: An Australian first pass: finding the relevant national flora, fauna list, collection record or identification resource and checking regional plausibility. Limits: It aggregates records of differing quality and taxonomic age. Citizen-science records need source-level scrutiny, sensitive localities may be generalised, and absence from the map does not establish absence in nature.

Biodiversity Heritage Library · Biodiversity Heritage Library international consortium of natural-history, botanical, research and national libraries

Good for: Finding original species descriptions, monographs, plates, historic observations and the literature behind a taxonomic claim. Limits: Much of the collection is historical: names, ranges, language and scientific conclusions may be outdated, and optical character recognition can misread names. A digitised page is a source to interpret, not a current determination.

Plants of the World Online · Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, using the World Checklist of Vascular Plants and contributing sources

Good for: Checking the accepted global treatment of a vascular-plant name and comparing distribution and available herbarium imagery. Limits: It is not a universal diagnostic key. Descriptions and images are uneven among taxa, and regional floras can legitimately adopt a different current treatment.

Australian Plant Census & Australian Plant Name Index · Council of Heads of Australasian Herbaria and Australian Biological Resources Study through the Australian National Species List

Good for: Settling the accepted Australian name, then tracing alternative names and the literature in which each usage appeared. Limits: Neither service identifies an unknown plant or replaces a flora. Taxonomic concepts can change, so retain the service and access date with a determination.

PlantNET — NSW Flora Online · National Herbarium of New South Wales, Botanic Gardens of Sydney

Good for: Identifying New South Wales plants from diagnostic characters and checking local distribution against herbarium evidence. Limits: Primarily New South Wales. State treatments can differ from the national census, and determinations outside the region need an appropriate local flora.

Index Fungorum & Species Fungorum · Index Fungorum Partnership and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

Good for: Separating the publication history of a fungal name from the currently accepted taxonomic treatment. Limits: A nomenclatural record is not an identification, and a name present in Index Fungorum is not necessarily the accepted one. Visual and ecological evidence is limited.

Australian Fungi List & Fungi Name Index · Australian Biological Resources Study and Australian fungal curators through the Australian National Species List

Good for: Checking which fungal name Australia currently accepts and tracing the usages and synonyms behind it. Limits: It is a name service, not an image key. A large proportion of Australia's fungal diversity remains undescribed, so a missing species may reflect a real knowledge gap.

Australian Lichen Checklist & Name Index · Australian Biological Resources Study through the Australian National Species List

Good for: Verifying the accepted Australian name after morphology, microscopy or chemistry has produced a candidate. Limits: It provides little visual identification help. Many lichens require microscopic structures or chemical characters that a field photograph cannot show.

Fungimap · Fungimap Inc., an Australian nonprofit organisation and registered charity

Good for: Learning the field characters of conspicuous Australian macrofungi and finding an appropriate expert community. Limits: Strongest for visible macrofungi rather than microfungi. Community identifications still need diagnostic support, and the resource must never be used to infer edibility or safety.

Australian Faunal Directory · Australian Biological Resources Study, Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water

Good for: Checking the accepted Australian name and taxonomic placement after an animal has been identified from appropriate evidence. Limits: Australia and its territories only. Coverage depth and update date differ among groups, and image or identification-key support is limited.

Mammal Diversity Database · American Society of Mammalogists Biodiversity Committee

Good for: Verifying a mammal name against a release maintained by specialist mammalogists. Limits: Taxonomy-focused, with limited help identifying an unknown from tracks, photographs, hair or skeletal material. Living and recently extinct mammals are its core scope.

AntWeb · California Academy of Sciences and an international network of ant taxonomists and collection curators

Good for: Comparing an ant specimen from several standard views and locating type or curated collection material for the candidate taxon. Limits: Restricted to ants, and many determinations require microscopic characters or a regional key. Image matching alone is especially weak in species-rich genera.

World Spider Catalog · Natural History Museum Bern and specialist spider taxonomists

Good for: Checking spider nomenclature and tracing the taxonomic literature after morphology has produced a candidate. Limits: Spiders only and not a visual key. Geographic detail is brief, and species-level determination commonly requires adult genital morphology.

The Reptile Database · Peter Uetz, Jakob Hallermann and specialist contributors

Good for: Checking a reptile name and distribution, then following the literature and images attached to the taxon. Limits: It is not a universal diagnostic key. Images can narrow candidates but rarely replace scale counts, measurements, locality-specific literature or examination of the animal.

Amphibian Species of the World · Darrel Frost, American Museum of Natural History

Good for: Verifying an amphibian name and tracing its synonymy and original or revising literature. Limits: Taxonomy-heavy rather than a field or call-identification tool, with limited visual support. Country-level distribution cannot confirm a local observation.

FrogID · Australian Museum

Good for: Turning a good Australian frog-call recording into a reviewable, expert-checked candidate with date and place attached. Limits: Australia only and call-based. It cannot identify silent animals or image-only records, and overlapping callers or poor recordings may remain unresolved.

Birdata · BirdLife Australia

Good for: Recording a repeatable survey, such as the 2 ha, 20 minute survey, that can feed bird monitoring and conservation work. Limits: Surveys follow set methods, so a casual one-off sighting is a poor fit. Data extracts are supplied on request through a form, not downloaded freely. Location data for sensitive species is hidden automatically.

BirdLife Australia ethical birdwatching guidelines · BirdLife Australia

Good for: Deciding how close to go, whether to use playback or a spotlight, and how to handle records of sensitive species. Limits: General guidance for Australian birdwatchers. It does not list which species are threatened or which places are protected, and it does not replace the rules of a park, reserve or landholder.

BirdLife Australia Bird Profiles · BirdLife Australia

Good for: Narrowing a photographed Australian bird and checking habitat, range and conservation status against a conservation organisation's account. Limits: The profile collection is still growing and does not cover every Australian bird. The search has no filter for calls. It is a visual aid rather than a complete diagnostic key.

Atlas of Living Australia bird species pages · Atlas of Living Australia, hosted by CSIRO and supported by Australia's National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy

Good for: Checking a shortlisted bird against Australian records and maps, and finding records that come with audio. Limits: Records come from many providers and vary in quality. A species page is only as complete as what providers have supplied, and sound files exist only for some records. Sensitive localities may be generalised, and a gap on a map does not show absence.

Birds of the World · Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Good for: Reading a detailed life-history account once you have a candidate species, including identification, voice and habitat. Limits: A subscription is needed for the full species accounts. The home page also mentions free preview accounts, institutional subscriptions and special member access, so check what your library or club provides. Accounts are revised at different times, so check the revision date.

xeno-canto · Xeno-canto Foundation, with Naturalis Biodiversity Center

Good for: Comparing your own recording with several recordings of each candidate species from different places and situations. Limits: Quality and coverage vary by species and region. Identifications are supplied by contributors and can be wrong, so compare several recordings rather than trusting one. Licences differ from recording to recording and many do not allow commercial reuse. Bot protection on the site blocked automated page reads on the check date.

Macaulay Library · Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Good for: Looking at and listening to many photographs and recordings of a species, with date and place, before you commit to a name. Limits: Anyone can view and listen, but media are not available for personal download unless they are yours. Reuse needs a request or the contributor's permission. Coverage is uneven across species and countries, and identifications are contributor-supplied.

eBird · Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Good for: Seeing where and when a species is reported, and sharing your own checklist so it adds to a global record. Limits: Records are volunteer observations of differing skill and effort. Sensitive species are obscured from public outputs, so absence from a map is not absence from a place. Download of the full dataset needs a login and a short project description.

WoRMS · International specialist editorial boards, hosted by the Flanders Marine Institute and supported by LifeWatch Belgium

Good for: Verifying the accepted name and taxonomic placement of a marine organism after diagnostic evidence has produced a candidate. Limits: Primarily nomenclatural rather than a visual key. Images, distributions and identification tools are uneven among groups, and whole-database redistribution has additional conditions.

FishBase · FishBase Consortium and Quantitative Aquatics

Good for: Comparing finfish morphology, checking meristic characters and following a regional key or species account. Limits: Finfishes rather than all aquatic life. Data depth and interactive-key coverage vary, and photographs do not replace counts or examination in difficult groups.

Fishes of Australia · Museums Victoria for OzFishNet and Australian museum partners

Good for: Identifying Australian marine or freshwater fishes and checking the candidate against museum-supported range and diagnostic information. Limits: Geographically restricted to Australia, and key depth differs among groups. Some identifications still require counts or specialist examination.

SeaLifeBase · SeaLifeBase team, FishBase Consortium and Quantitative Aquatics partners

Good for: Finding baseline information and comparison material for marine invertebrates and other non-finfish aquatic groups. Limits: Coverage and depth are much less complete than the diversity it represents. It is not a consistent diagnostic key, and accepted names should be checked in the relevant specialist register.

OBIS · Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO through its International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange programme and the OBIS node network

Good for: Checking marine geographic, depth and temporal plausibility and tracing an occurrence back to its survey, collection or monitoring dataset. Limits: An occurrence aggregator, not an identification key. Coverage follows sampling effort, records can inherit source errors, and sensitive or culturally governed data require CARE as well as FAIR handling.

AlgaeBase · AlgaeBase team associated with the University of Galway and its international contributor network

Good for: Resolving algal names and checking synonyms and distribution after morphology or sequence evidence has produced a candidate. Limits: A work in progress reflecting editorial taxonomic opinions. It is not an interactive key, image and verification coverage are uneven, and bulk reuse is controlled.

MicroscopyU · Nikon Instruments

Good for: Understanding what the microscope and contrast method can resolve before interpreting a feature as biological. Limits: Vendor-authored teaching material, not a taxonomic key, safety course or substitute for the operating manual and training for a particular instrument.

MyScope · Microscopy Australia and Australian university partners

Good for: Learning the workflow and vocabulary of an imaging method before entering a supervised facility or documenting a record. Limits: Simulators and online modules do not replace facility-specific training, risk assessment or supervised competence with a real instrument and specimen.

BioImage Archive · EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute

Good for: Finding primary image evidence behind a paper and comparing methods, metadata and source files rather than screenshots. Limits: A repository rather than an identification key. Taxonomic depth, metadata completeness, file format, licence and dataset size vary by accession.

Image Data Resource · Open Microscopy Environment project with University of Dundee and EMBL-EBI participation

Good for: Exploring a well-annotated image dataset in the browser and understanding how image, phenotype and experiment metadata connect. Limits: Selective rather than taxonomically comprehensive, with substantial cell, tissue and screening content. Some legacy images have reduced browser functionality.

EMPIAR · EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute

Good for: Inspecting primary electron-microscopy evidence and the acquisition context behind a reconstruction or published figure. Limits: Files can be enormous and require specialist software. Much of the archive is structural cryo-EM rather than an organism-identification atlas.

BioImage Archive · EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute

Good for: Finding primary image evidence behind a paper and comparing methods, metadata and source files rather than screenshots. Limits: A repository rather than an identification key. Taxonomic depth, metadata completeness, file format, licence and dataset size vary by accession.

Image Data Resource · Open Microscopy Environment project with University of Dundee and EMBL-EBI participation

Good for: Exploring a well-annotated image dataset in the browser and understanding how image, phenotype and experiment metadata connect. Limits: Selective rather than taxonomically comprehensive, with substantial cell, tissue and screening content. Some legacy images have reduced browser functionality.

EMPIAR · EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute

Good for: Inspecting primary electron-microscopy evidence and the acquisition context behind a reconstruction or published figure. Limits: Files can be enormous and require specialist software. Much of the archive is structural cryo-EM rather than an organism-identification atlas.

BOLD Systems · Centre for Biodiversity Genomics, University of Guelph, with the International Barcode of Life community

Good for: Matching an appropriate barcode marker against specimen-linked references and inspecting the evidence behind the closest records. Limits: Coverage and label quality are uneven, private records can make a result hard to reproduce, and Barcode Index Numbers are operational clusters rather than formally described species.

NCBI BLAST · National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health

Good for: Tracing a query to candidate accessions and publications when no more appropriate specialist identification service covers the marker. Limits: Similarity is not identity. Broad databases contain submitter-supplied labels, contaminants and uneven curation, and no universal percentage threshold establishes a species.

SILVA · SILVA team at DSMZ Digital Diversity

Good for: Broad 16S, 18S, 23S or 28S placement using a release that can be recorded and reproduced. Limits: Reference and Parc subsets have different curation levels; not every record is type-validated, eukaryotic curation is uneven and taxonomy changes between releases.

UNITE · UNITE community-governed collaboration centred on the University of Tartu

Good for: Fungal ITS assignment with a versioned reference set and operational hypotheses that can be cited precisely. Limits: Species Hypotheses are threshold-dependent clusters rather than formal species. ITS resolution differs among clades and underlying public labels can still be imperfect.

PR² · International protist specialists coordinated through Station Biologique de Roscoff, CNRS and EukRef partners

Good for: Protist-specific 18S assignment using a curated taxonomic framework rather than a broad unfiltered sequence archive. Limits: A sequence reference rather than morphology; 18S often cannot resolve species, environmental labels can be uncertain and expert coverage varies among clades.

BacDive · Leibniz Institute DSMZ — German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures

Good for: Checking whether a microbial candidate agrees with a documented strain's provenance, morphology, physiology and culture conditions. Limits: Not a visual identification key. Culture-derived phenotypes can differ from environmental observations, uncultured diversity is underrepresented and record completeness varies.

LPSN · DSMZ Digital Diversity

Good for: Checking whether a bacterial or archaeal name is validly published and identifying its nomenclatural type strain. Limits: Nomenclature is not identification and LPSN is not an official universal biological classification. A valid name says nothing about whether the query belongs to that taxon.

RRUFF Project · RRUFF research project, originating at the University of Arizona

Good for: Comparing laboratory measurements with reference spectra or diffraction data rather than relying on appearance. Limits: Species and sample coverage are incomplete, and RRUFF is not the mineral-naming authority. The rebuilt service still marks some functions as unfinished.

EarthChem · EarthChem and IEDA2 at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University

Good for: Comparing composition or age data with source-linked analyses and locating relevant published datasets. Limits: A heterogeneous aggregation with geographic and material biases. Contributor-assigned rock names are not independently validated identities.

AuScope EarthBank · AuScope Geochemistry Network and Lithodat, supported by Australia's National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy

Good for: Finding Australian analytical data where samples, methods, laboratories and provenance remain connected. Limits: Australia-heavy and contributor-supplied. Inspect laboratory methods, quality assurance and original attribution before comparison.

SESAR² · IEDA2 GeoInformatics Research Group at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

Good for: Checking whether an Earth or extraterrestrial sample has a persistent identifier and tracing related samples, datasets and papers. Limits: A metadata and identifier registry, not proof of identity, legal custody, physical availability or analytical quality.

GeoReM · International Association of Geoanalysts with current infrastructure partners

Good for: Documenting calibration and quality assurance against an appropriate reference material and comparing published values. Limits: Reference materials only, not field specimens. Users must distinguish certified, recommended and compiled values and retain database and material versions.

IMA–CNMNC List of Mineral Names · International Mineralogical Association Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature and Classification

Good for: Checking whether a mineral name is approved, renamed, discredited or otherwise qualified, with the list version retained. Limits: Not an identification key, occurrence database or image library. An accepted name does not show that a sample belongs to that species.

Mindat.org · Hudson Institute of Mineralogy with an expert-moderated volunteer community

Good for: Generating candidates from habit and associations and finding locality-specific literature or comparable photographs. Limits: Community-curated rather than a nomenclatural authority. Corroborate names with IMA and occurrences with surveys or literature; photographs alone do not identify a specimen.

Meteoritical Bulletin Database · Meteoritical Society Nomenclature Committee, hosted by the Lunar and Planetary Institute

Good for: Checking an official meteorite name and following its classification and repository information. Limits: Provisional, doubtful and early classifications need care; classifications can change and mass or collection details can be incomplete. It does not authenticate a newly found stone.

AAVSO International Database · American Association of Variable Star Observers

Good for: Comparing a time series with historical observations and inspecting the filters, errors and observer metadata behind each point. Limits: Instruments, filters and error practices are heterogeneous; visual observations have intrinsically larger scatter. Time and quality flags need careful interpretation.

MAST · Space Telescope Science Institute for NASA

Good for: Retrieving the mission-calibrated product and provenance behind a comparison image, spectrum or light curve. Limits: Primarily ultraviolet, optical and near-infrared; active-mission data can be embargoed, and calibration and product meanings remain mission-specific.

Astrometry.net Nova · Astrometry.net team; web service hosted through Canadian astronomy data infrastructure

Good for: Turning an astrophotograph with no reliable coordinates into a testable sky position and plate solution. Limits: The shared queue has no solve guarantee; sparse, distorted or poor-signal fields can fail. WCS still needs residual validation and is not photometric calibration.

SIMBAD · Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg, Strasbourg Observatory

Good for: Resolving alternate designations and checking coordinates, object type and literature for a fixed astronomical source. Limits: A heterogeneous literature meta-compilation rather than a catalogue, and it excludes Solar-System objects. Measurements from different sources and epochs are not automatically comparable.

VizieR Catalogue Service · Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg, Strasbourg Observatory

Good for: Cross-matching a field or source against the specific catalogue appropriate to the measurement and retaining its release and ReadMe. Limits: Catalogues have different epochs, selection functions, uncertainties and quality flags. Coverage is not exhaustive and source-catalogue reuse terms vary.

Aladin Sky Atlas · Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg

Good for: Visually checking a solved field against survey imagery and catalogue sources while retaining their identifiers. Limits: HiPS layers are often resampled visualisations rather than original calibrated files. Authority and reuse conditions remain with each upstream archive.

Gaia ESA Archive · European Space Agency Science Archives Team and Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium

Good for: Checking astrometric identity and epoch-dependent position against a named Gaia data release. Limits: Crowding, zero-points, selection effects and release-specific source identifiers matter. The live archive warned of instability during DR4 preparation at the last check.

NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database · Caltech/IPAC for NASA

Good for: Resolving an extragalactic source and tracing the measurements and publications behind its identifiers and redshift. Limits: Extragalactic only and updated in releases rather than continuously. Legacy APIs cannot see data ingested after January 2026; use the current APIs.