Family search
Single family name, no authority, example: Agavaceae- Single family name truncated, example: Aga* (minimum two characters required before wildcard symbol)
- Multiple family names, no authorities, comma separated, example: Agavaceae,Agostocarididae,Ailoscolecidae or
Agavaceae, Agostocarididae, Ailoscolecidae (space after comma is optional) - Multiple family names, on different lines, without authorities, example:
Agavaceae
Agostocarididae
Ailoscolecidae
(2) Authorities for family names are not supported in IRMNG searches at this time.
(3) Selected "near match" family names will also be returned in addition to exact matches, as presently held in the database.
Genus search
- Single genus name, no authority, example: Ficus
- Single genus name truncated, example: Fic* (minimum two characters required before wildcard symbol)
- Single genus name, with authority and year or simple authority and no year, example: Ficus Röding, 1798 or Ficus Röding (note in this case, the authority portion should not contain any commas)
- Single genus name, with complex authority, trailing "//" entered if there is no year to indicate this case, example: Neorescius Heyden, Reitter & Weise, 1906 or Neorescius Heyden, Reitter & Weise// (so that commas in the authority without a date are not otherwise interpreted as separators between multiple genus names)
- Multiple genus names, comma separated, no authorities, example: Ficus,Homo,Physeter,Tyrannosaurus or
Ficus, Homo, Physeter, Tyrannosaurus (space after comma is optional) - Multiple genus names, on different lines, without or with authorities, example:
Ficus
Homo
Physeter
Tyrannosaurus
or
Ficus Röding, 1798
Homo Linnaeus, 1758
Physeter Linnaeus, 1758
Tyrannosaurus Osborn, 1905
(trailing slashes should not be entered in these cases as the line breaks supply the relevant separations)
(2) Where multiple genera exist with the same name (homonyms), all matches will be returned irrespective of authority match, however the degree of author similarity will be indicated on a 0-1 scale by a small graphic.
(3) When a single genus name is entered, the TAXAMATCH fuzzy match algorithm will also return candidate near matches to the entered name as presently held in the database, in addition to exact match/es, if any. This facility is also available as a separate hyperlink for any names not matched when a batch of names is entered.
Species search
- Single genus + species name, with or without authority (latter can be abbreviated according to standard lists), example: Homo sapiens or Homo sapiens L. or Homo sapiens Linnaeus or Homo sapiens Linnaeus, 1758
- Single genus name + truncated species, example: Homo sap* (minimum two characters required before wildcard symbol)
- Single genus name abbreviated, plus species in full, example: H.sapiens or H. sapiens (space after comma is optional)
- % symbol as wildcard, plus species in full, example: %.sapiens or %. sapiens, to find species with desired epithet independent of genus name (space after comma is optional)
- Multiple species names, on different lines, without or with authorities, example:
Ficus variegata Röding, 1798
Homo capensis Broom, 1917
Physeter catodon L.
Tyrannosaurus rex
(2) Where multiple species exist with the same name (homonyms), all matches will be returned irrespective of authority match, however the degree of author similarity will be indicated on a 0-1 scale by a small graphic
(3) When a single species name is entered, the TAXAMATCH fuzzy match algorithm will also return candidate near matches to the entered name as presently held in the database, in addition to exact match/es, if any. This facility is also available as a separate hyperlink for any names not matched when a batch of names is entered
(4) Subgenera, where supplied in brackets between a genus and species name, will be ignored, such that e.g. Patella (Scutellastra) chapmani will simply be treated as "Patella chapmani" for matching purposes. (In a future version a match may be sought on subgenus as well, or subgenus treated as a genus).
(5) Infraspecies and other trinomials are not handled at this time; any supplied text following a genus+species combination will currently be interpreted as an authority (this may be changed at a future date)
(6) Absence of a desired species name does not indicate that this is a candidate misspelling, since the IRMNG database is less than 50% complete at species level at the present time.
Author search (genus level)
- Single author name (surname with or without initials, however the latter will be discarded before matching, also white space is unimportant), example: Taylor or F.Taylor or F. Taylor or F.J.R. Taylor
- Single author name truncated, example: Hook* will return genera described by e.g. Hook, Hooker, and anything else matching this pattern
- Single author name plus year, example: Taylor 1844 or Taylor, 1844 or T. Taylor, 1844 (commas are unimportant)
- Year only, example: 1844
(2) ancillary terms will be discarded before matching, e.g. "von Höhnel" will match "Höhnel", and vice versa
(3) because of known variation in quoting of author initials (style and/or omission.inclusion), at the present time the match is on surname only (i.e. the result set for "J.D. Hooker" may include genera ascribed to W.J. Hooker or simply Hooker in addition to as the desired individual author)
(4) the match is tolerant of common mismatches caused presence/absence of diacritical marks, e.g. "Lacépède", "Lacepède" and "Lacepede" will all match, "Hohnel" will match "Höhnel", and vice versa (however will not match "Hoehnel" at this time).