How to use

The Amphibian Species of the World database has three primary searching tools that ARE NOT interoperable: 1) a BROWSE table (on the right) that allows users to click through the taxonomic hierarchy to the record(s) of interest; 2) BASIC SEARCH box that functions much like Google but accepts Boolean search grammar (see below); and 3) a GUIDED SEARCH box that allows for specific parts of the taxon records to be searched and also allows both Boolean grammar in its searches as well as implied Boolean searches by employing multiple search boxes simultaneously within the GUIDED SEARCH tool. In addition, when you reach a taxon record, if you click on the underlined citation you will be provided a complete bibliographic citation. 

1) BROWSE Table (on the right): Click through any name for the taxon record. At the bottom of each record will be listed subsidiary taxa that can also be clicked. All underlined author, date, and citation lines will take you to all other records with the same entry(s).

2) BASIC SEARCH (on the left): The "basic search" is similar to that employed by Google and allows all fields (e.g., author, dates, taxon names) of all records to be searched using Boolean grammar. For instance inserting the statement "Lithobates AND pipiens NOT forreri" will return all records that contain such statements as "Lithobates pipiens group" in the comment section and all records that have "Lithobates pipiens" in the synonymy, but NOT "Lithobates forreri". You will find this search option to be extremely useful for searching on collection acronyms, and various word strings of interest. In the box below you can restrict the basic search within a specified taxonomic subset (e.g., Hylidae). This requires compliance with an autofill list that restricts to a currently recognized taxon. 

Search only within taxon (autocomplete list): Using the autocomplete list the user can restrict the results by the inclusive taxon. For instance, if one is interested in a list of all Hylidae within Costa Rica, the term "Hylidae" can be selected for this search box and the country "Costa Rica" selected from the pull-down menu under Country. In one sense, this "search" box is not so much a search term as a filter for results. 

3) SPECIES COUNT (on the left): This searching capability is optimized on taxa by political unit (nations, or, in some cases, e.g., French Guiana, USA states, West and East Malaysia, significant parts of nations). The search can be constrained by supra-specific taxon. 

Two search boxes were lost from version 5.6 to 6. These are "Keywords in distribution" and "Keywords in comments", both of which can be queried in the Basic Search. Problems associated with the changes in this version will be corrected in the  future.