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University Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Introduction to the Biodiversity Heritage Library: Scientific Name Search

Learn how to search the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

BHL scientific name search allows you to search the corpus for scientific names of animals and plants. This can be useful if you are trying to compile a list of citations that reference certain species. The BHL uses a Taxonomic Name Recognition tool to analyze the text in the BHL and compile a list of name results. Learn more about how the Taxonomic Name Recognition algorithm in BHL works Learn more about how the Taxonomic Name Recognition algorithm in BHL works here.

You can search for a scientific name starting from either the general search bar or advanced search page.

From Basic Search

1. Enter a taxonomic name into the general search box:

sci names general search


2.Select the Scientific Names tab from the results screen:

sci names tab

From Advanced Search

1. Select the Scientific Names tab to search for your name:

sci names advanced search


Both methods will return a list of names matching your search. To learn more, click on the desired name:

scientific names list


You will be taken to the Species Bibliography for that name, which lists all of the individual pages where that name occurs. Use the Pages column to access specific pages.

sci names bibliography

Bibliographies use the canonical form of the species name and include results for both the canonical and long name (with author/date) forms. Bibliography URLs for the long name include references for both name forms.