reptSynonyms: Retrieve Synonyms for Reptile Species from RDB

In letsRept: An Interface to the Reptile Database

Retrieve Synonyms for Reptile Species from RDB

Description

Retrieves a data frame containing the current valid names of reptile species along with all their recognized synonyms, as listed in The Reptile Database (RDB). Optionally, the references citing each synonym can also be included.

Usage

reptSynonyms(x, getRef = FALSE, showProgress = TRUE, cores = 1)

Arguments

x	A character string with a species binomial or a data frame with columns species and url, typically the output of reptSpecies with getLink = TRUE.
getRef	Logical. If TRUE, includes the reference(s) in which each synonym was mentioned. Default is FALSE.
showProgress	Logical. If TRUE, prints data sampling progress. Default is TRUE.
cores	Integer. Number of CPU cores to use for parallel processing. Default is cores = 1.

Value

A data frame with columns:

• species: The valid species name according to RDB.

• synonym: Recognized synonyms and chresonyms for the species. Chresonyms are usually separated from authors with an emdash.

• reference (optional): If getRef = TRUE, the citation where the synonym was reported.

References

Uetz, P., Freed, P., Aguilar, R., Reyes, F., Kudera, J., & Hošek, J. (eds.) (2025). The Reptile Database. Retrieved from http://www.reptile-database.org

See Also

reptSpecies, reptAdvancedSearch

Examples

# Filter species belonging to genus Boa
boa <- letsRept::allReptiles[grep("^Boa\\s", letsRept::allReptiles$species), ]


# Retrieve synonyms (without references)
boa_syn <- reptSynonyms(boa, getRef = FALSE, cores = 2)
Bconstrictor_syn <- reptSynonyms(x = "Boa constrictor")

letsRept documentation built on June 22, 2026, 9:09 a.m.