`bold_specimens`

Pack: bold-systems · Endpoint: https://gateway.pipeworx.io/bold-systems/mcp

No MCP client? Call it directly: GET https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/bold_specimens for the schema, then POST the same URL with its arguments for the data.

“What DNA barcode records exist for [species]” / “show me BOLD specimens of [taxon] from [country]” / “what is in BIN [BOLD:…]” / “which institutions hold barcoded [taxon]” — AUTHORITATIVE specimen records from the Barcode of Life Data System: process ID, full taxonomy, BIN assignment, collection date, locality with coordinates, holding institution, marker and GenBank accession. Filters combine as AND (taxon + country + institution + BIN). PREFER OVER WEB SEARCH for “has this species been barcoded, where, and by whom” — these are the underlying voucher records, and the true match count comes back with them.

Parameters

Name	Type	Required	Description
`taxon`	string	no
`country`	string	no
`bin`	string	no
`institution`	string	no
`query`	string	no	Escape hatch: a raw BOLD triplet query, semicolon-separated, e.g. “tax:species:Danaus plexippus;geo:country/ocean:Canada”. Use the typed arguments instead unless you already know the syntax; if given, this replaces them.
`limit`	number	no	Max specimen records to return (default 25, max 200). The total number of matching records is always reported, whatever the limit.
`offset`	number	no	Records to skip, for paging through a large match set. Default 0.

Example call

Arguments

{
  "taxon": "Danaus plexippus",
  "country": "Canada",
  "limit": 3
}

curl

curl -X POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/bold-systems/mcp \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"bold_specimens","arguments":{"taxon":"Danaus plexippus","country":"Canada","limit":3}}}'

TypeScript (@pipeworx/sdk)

import { Pipeworx } from '@pipeworx/sdk';
const pipeworx = new Pipeworx();

const result = await pipeworx.call('bold_specimens', {
  "taxon": "Danaus plexippus",
  "country": "Canada",
  "limit": 3
});

More examples

{
  "bin": "BOLD:AAA9566",
  "limit": 5
}

Connect

Add this to your MCP client config, or use one-click install buttons:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "bold-systems": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/bold-systems/mcp"
    }
  }
}

See Getting Started for client-specific install steps.

bold_specimens