It's also interesting that some entities (e.g. EOL) are now using something called Life Science ID's (or something like that) in lieu of traditional scientific names. It sounds like a cool idea, but some of the LSID's seem awfully big and complex to me. I haven't figured out exactly what the codes mean.
Then again, when I navigate to the Encyclopedia of Life's aardvark page @ http://www.eol.org/pages/327830/overview the code is actually amazingly short. On Sun, Oct 25, 2015 at 9:04 PM, David Blomstrom <david.blomst...@gmail.com> wrote: > What was amazed me is the HUGE tables (as in too big to work with or > publish online) that, as near as I can remember, have rows like this... > > panthera-leo (lion) | Panthera | Felidae | Carnivora | Mammalia | Chordata > | Animalia > > cramming virtually the entire hierarchy into every single row. Some of my > tables have extra columns listing every species family and order, which > most people would consider sloppy. But that's tame compared to how they do > it. > > I've never been able to make their downloads work on my Mac laptop, and > the PHP is too complex for me to figure out. Nor have they ever replied to > my e-mails. But the websites using their scheme include the Encyclopedia of > Life (EOL). > > I'm focusing on creating a polished database focusing on vertebrates, > along with select invertebrates and plants. After I get that squared away, > I'd like to try adding the Catalogue of Life's entire database. The > Encyclopedia of Life and WIkipedia are both enormous projects, but there > are some amazing gaps in both projects that I hope to fill. > > On Sun, Oct 25, 2015 at 8:51 PM, Adrian Klaver <adrian.kla...@aklaver.com> > wrote: > >> On 10/25/2015 06:10 PM, David Blomstrom wrote: >> >>> @ Adrian Klaver: Oh, so you're suggesting I make separate tables for >>> kingdoms, classes and on down to species. I'll research foreign keys and >>> see what I can come up with. I hope I can make separate tables for >>> mammal species, bird species, fish species, etc. There are just so many >>> species - especially fish - the spreadsheets I use to organize them are >>> just about maxed out as it is. >>> >> >> If you go here: >> >> >> http://www.catalogueoflife.org/col/browse/classification?71dd35ed0e10acf939d0123cdbf9ce57 >> >> that is how you can drill down to a species in the CoL. >> >> It just seems to follow what is already there. No doubt, there are a lot >> of species. What is probably more important is that the relationships have >> changed over time and can be expected to change more, as genetic testing >> for the purpose of taxonomic classification becomes more prevalent. >> >> >>> I've been using the Catalogue of Life as a guide, but I'm limited >>> because I can never get their downloads to work. So all I can do is go >>> to their website and copy a bunch of genera and species at a time. >>> >> >> Well I downloaded the 2015 snapshot and it turns out it is MySQL >> specific. Recently upgraded this computer, will have to see if >> MySQL/Mariadb survived the process before I can go any further. It would be >> interesting to see how they tackled the relationships. >> >> >> >>> However, I did open up some of the tables I downloaded and was amazed at >>> how apparently amateurish they are. Yet their site works just fine and >>> is fast enough. >>> >>> @ Alban Hertroys: What does EOL mean? It reminds me of Encyclopedia of >>> Life, which is doing what I was attempting to do years ago. >>> >>> >> >> -- >> Adrian Klaver >> adrian.kla...@aklaver.com >> > > > > -- > David Blomstrom > Writer & Web Designer (Mac, M$ & Linux) > www.geobop.org > -- David Blomstrom Writer & Web Designer (Mac, M$ & Linux) www.geobop.org