Integrated Taxonomic Information System - TWB File Format

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ITIS TWB File Format

The file you download from Download a Specific Taxonomic Group in TWB format is meant as an input file to our Taxonomic Workbench tool. As such, it is formatted for that tool in sections that represent database tables as they would be used in the workbench.

You'll notice each line begins with a two letter code (e.g. TU, SY, TA). These codes represent the type of data; for the examples above, TU is Taxonomic Unit data, SY is for synonyms and TA is for Taxon Authors.

After this table identifier, the data fields are shown with a vertical pipe character (|) between each field.

The definition of these fields can be found in the ITIS Data Models section of the Standards and Database Documentation page.

There can be many types of data contained in this single file. The format of each section is:

Comment Links
[CL] || tsn | comment_id |

Comments
[CM] | comment_id | commentator | comment_detail | comment_time_stamp |

Experts
[EX]expert_id_prefix | expert_id | expert | exp_comment |

Geographic Division
[GD] | geographic_value | tsn |

Jurisdiction
[JR] | jurisdiction_value | origin | tsn |

NODC IDs
[NO]nodc_id | tsn ||

Other Sources
[OS] source_id_prefix || source_id | source_type | source | version | acquisition_date | source_comment |

Publications
[PB] publication_id_prefix || publication_id | reference_author | title | publication_name | listed_pub_date | actual_pub_date | publisher | pub_place | isbn | issn | pages | pub_comment |

Reference Links
[RF] ||| tsn | doc_id_prefix | documentation_id | original_desc_ind | initial_itis_desc_ind | change_track_id | vernacular_name |

Synonym Links
[SY] || tsn | tsn_accepted |

Taxonomic Authors Lookup
[TA] | taxon_author_id | taxon_author | kingdom_id |

Taxonomic Units
[TU] | tsn | unit_ind1 | unit_name1 | unit_ind2 | unit_name2 | unit_ind3 | unit_name3 | unit_ind4 | unit_name4 | unnamed_taxon_ind | usage | unacceptability_reason | taxonomic_credibility_rating | taxonomic_completeness_rating | currency_rating | phylo_sort_sequence | initial_time_stamp | parent_tsn || taxon_author_id || hybrid_author_id | kingdom_id | rank_id | uncertain_parent_ind |

VernacularReferenceLinks
[VL] | | vern_id | | | tsn | doc_id_prefix | documentation_id |

Vernaculars
[VR] || tsn | vernacular_name | vern_id | language | approved_ind |

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