Overview
iDigBio is a free API that gives you access to millions of digitized natural history museum specimens from institutions across the United States and beyond. You can search for specimens by species, location, date, or institution and retrieve detailed occurrence records. It is a great resource for biodiversity research and educational projects.
Beginner Tip
Use the records search endpoint with a simple scientific name filter to quickly retrieve specimen records. The API supports pagination so start with a small limit value to understand the data before fetching large datasets.
Measurement Record
What actually happened when we called this API from our own infrastructure. Every value below was recorded by the request, not copied from the provider's documentation.
- Request
- GET https://search.idigbio.org/v2/search/records/
- Result
- HTTP 200 · application/json · 4,324,820 bytes · compressed
- Response time
- 1396 ms (median of 3) · fastest 1373 ms
- Transport
- TLSv1.3 · TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 · certificate issued by Let's Encrypt
- Browser CORS
- Allowed — Access-Control-Allow-Origin: https://apisscore.com
- Recorded
- 2026-08-10
Available Data
The kind of data this API exposes, based on its documentation. We could not call the endpoint to confirm the exact field names.
Example Response
Illustrative shape only — we were not able to call this endpoint (it requires credentials or exposes no public sample URL), so the fields below show the kind of data this API returns rather than a recorded response.
{
"status": "success",
"data": {
"result": "Data from iDigBio",
"description": "Access millions of museum specimens from organizations around the world",
"timestamp": "2025-01-15T10:00:00Z"
}
} Field Reference
itemCount Total number of records matching the search query. items Array of specimen record objects matching the query. uuid Unique iDigBio identifier for the specimen record. data.dwc:scientificName Scientific name of the organism as provided by the institution. data.dwc:locality Textual description of the collection location. indexTerms.geopoint Latitude and longitude coordinates of the collection site. Implementation Example
Calls a real endpoint of this API. Replace any placeholder credentials with your own key.
const url = "https://search.idigbio.org/v2/search/records/";
const response = await fetch(url);
if (!response.ok) throw new Error(`Request failed: ${response.status}`);
const data = await response.json();
console.log(data); What Can You Build?
Note: These code examples are AI-generated and unverified. Always refer to the official API documentation for accurate usage.
Common Errors & Troubleshooting
Generated guidance based on this API's documentation, not observed by us. Treat it as a starting point and check against the provider's own error reference.
Measured Score Breakdown
Live HTTP request to the API endpoint
Fully tested on Aug 10, 2026
Technical Specifications
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