MCP server exposing 8 tools for catalogueoflife.
This URL is a JSON-RPC 2.0 endpoint over HTTP. Issue POST requests with a JSON-RPC body. Browsers and search crawlers land here on GET.
POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/catalogueoflife/mcp
Content-Type: application/json
{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/list"}search — "What is the scientific name of [animal/plant]" / "what family does [species] belong to" / "look up [organism] taxonomy" / "find [genus/family] in the tree of life" / "common name → Latin binomial" / "is [name] a real species" — AUTHORITATIVE taxonomic lookup for any species, genus, family, or higher taxon. Source: Catalogue of Life — the global consensus checklist of every known living organism (~2.1M accepted species names plus synonyms). Returns matching name-usages with scientific name, authorship, rank (kingdom→species), status (accepted | synonym | misapplied), and taxon ID for follow-up calls to `taxon` or `classification`. Filter by `rank` ("species" / "genus" / etc.) when narrowing.name_match — "Is [Panthera leo] a valid scientific name" / "exact match for [Latin binomial]" / "disambiguate homonyms" — exact scientific-name match returning 0 or 1 hit plus close alternatives. Use when you have a precise Latin name and want to confirm acceptance or distinguish homonyms (same name used for different organisms — pass authorship to disambiguate).usage — Fetch a single Catalogue of Life name-usage record by its COL ID, returning taxon name, authorship, rank, status (accepted/synonym), and source dataset. Use after search or name_match to retrieve the full structured record.taxon — Fetch a Catalogue of Life accepted taxon record by its COL taxon ID, returning the accepted concept with name, rank, and authorship. Pair with classification for lineage, children to descend the tree, or vernacular for common names.classification — "What kingdom / phylum / class / order / family / genus is [species] in" / "taxonomy of [organism]" / "show me the lineage of [animal/plant]" / "where does [species] sit in the tree of life" — returns the full classification chain (kingdom → phylum → class → order → family → genus → species) for a Catalogue of Life taxon ID. Use after `search` to get the lineage of a specific species.vernacular — "What's the common name for [Latin binomial]" / "what do people call [scientific name]" / "vernacular names of [species]" — list common/vernacular names (in various languages) for a Catalogue of Life taxon. Use to map "Panthera leo" → "lion" / "leon" / "lwów" etc.synonyms — "What are the synonyms of [species]" / "old name for [organism]" / "alternative scientific names" — list synonyms (alternative or historical scientific names) currently mapped to a single Catalogue of Life accepted taxon. Use to map outdated taxonomy to current names.children — "What species are in [genus]" / "all members of [family]" / "species under [order]" / "direct descendants of [taxon]" — list immediate child taxa under a Catalogue of Life parent taxon. Use to walk down the tree of life one rank at a time.Code samples (curl / TypeScript / one-click client install), schemas, and the live playground are on the pack page:
https://pipeworx.io/packs/catalogueoflife/
Pipeworx is an open MCP gateway connecting AI agents to live data. pipeworx.io