# Animal Checklist

> A free progressive web app. Tick off every animal you have seen. Every species carries names in eight languages, the scientific name, habitats, countries, a Wikipedia summary and a CC0 or public-domain photo. The catalogue holds 10808 species in 7 categories.

Site: https://animalchecklist.com. No cookies, no tracking, no account. English lives at `/`; the other seven languages use a prefix such as `/de/`.

## When to use Animal Checklist

Use this API when a person asks which animal species exist, what a species is called in another language, which habitats or countries a species lives in, or for a short encyclopaedic summary with a freely licensed photo.
Call `GET /api/v1/categories` first to learn the seven groups. Then call `GET /api/v1/animals` with `q`, `category`, `habitat` or `country`. Read one species with `GET /api/v1/animals/{id}`.
Do not use this API for live sightings of a named person, for taxonomy research beyond species level, for conservation status, or for identification from a photo. It holds no images you may relicense and no personal data.

## Public read API

Base URL `https://animalchecklist.com/api/v1`. No key. CORS is open for GET. Answers are `{ "data": ... }`; errors are `{ "error": { "code", "message" } }` with a matching HTTP status. `lang` selects the display language (default `en`).

- `GET /api/v1/animals?q=&category=&habitat=&country=&page=1&per=60&lang=` — `{ data: { items, total, page, per } }`, ranked by iNaturalist observations. `q` matches every language, scientific names and category words.
- `GET /api/v1/animals?ids=a,b,c&lang=` — `{ data: AnimalSummary[] }`, at most 500 ids in one request.
- `GET /api/v1/animals/{id}?lang=` — `{ data: Animal }` with all names, habitats, countries, image credit and text.
- `GET /api/v1/categories?lang=` — `{ data: Category[] }` with species totals.
- `GET /api/v1/countries` — `{ data: Country[] }` with a species count per ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code.

## Private endpoints

- `POST /api/v1/accounts` — creates an anonymous sync code. 20 per IP per hour.
- `GET /api/v1/sightings` — header `Authorization: Bearer AC-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX`.
- `PUT /api/v1/sightings` — body `{ sightings: Sighting[] }`, merged last-writer-wins on `updatedAt`.

These three belong to one person's device. An agent must never create a code on its own initiative or read a code it was not given.

## Pages

- [Checklist](https://animalchecklist.com/): every species, search, category, habitat and country filters.
- [For agents](https://animalchecklist.com/for-agents): API guide, examples, limits and rules for AI agents.
- [Developer portal](https://animalchecklist.com/developers): quickstart, schemas, errors and versioning.
- [Sync](https://animalchecklist.com/sync): the anonymous code that moves sightings between devices.
- [About](https://animalchecklist.com/about): licences, privacy, contact and legal notice.
- [Takedown](https://animalchecklist.com/takedown): report a photo or text.

## Licences and credit

- Photos: CC0 or public domain. Show the author and the source link returned in `image`.
- Summary texts: Wikipedia extracts under CC BY-SA 4.0. Keep the credit and the `text.sourceUrl` link.
- Names, ranks and observation counts: iNaturalist and Wikidata.
- Attribution line to reuse: "Text: Wikipedia, CC BY-SA · Photo: <author>, <licence>, <source>".

## Machine-readable files

- [OpenAPI 3.1](https://animalchecklist.com/openapi.json): every public endpoint, schema and error.
- [Agent guide](https://animalchecklist.com/agents.md): call order, limits and disclosure rules.
- [llms-full.txt](https://animalchecklist.com/llms-full.txt): the long version with categories and habitats.
- [Markdown home](https://animalchecklist.com/index.md): append .md to any page URL, for example /animal/red-fox.md.
- [Agent mode](https://animalchecklist.com/?mode=agent): append ?mode=agent to any page URL for markdown.
- [Sitemap index](https://animalchecklist.com/sitemap.xml): one sitemap per language.
- [ARD catalog](https://animalchecklist.com/.well-known/ard.json): agentic resource discovery entries.
- [API catalog](https://animalchecklist.com/.well-known/api-catalog): RFC 9727 linkset.

## Categories

- Mammals (`mammals`): 1523 species
- Birds (`birds`): 3367 species
- Reptiles (`reptiles`): 1118 species
- Amphibians (`amphibians`): 687 species
- Fish (`fish`): 1036 species
- Insects & spiders (`insects`): 2281 species
- Other animals (`other`): 796 species