get_lineage_by_id: Retrieve the full taxonomic lineage of a taxon

In taxodist: Taxonomic Distance and Phylogenetic Lineage Computation

Retrieve the full taxonomic lineage of a taxon

Description

Given a Taxonomicon numeric ID, retrieves and parses the complete hierarchical lineage from root (Natura) to the taxon itself. The lineage is returned as a character vector ordered from root to tip.

Usage

get_lineage_by_id(taxon_id, clean = TRUE, verbose = FALSE)

Arguments

taxon_id	A numeric or character string giving the Taxonomicon ID. Obtain this with get_taxonomicon_id().
clean	Logical. If TRUE (default), removes philosophical root nodes above Biota (i.e., Natura, actualia, Mundus, naturalia) and strips dagger and superscript markers from names.
verbose	Logical. If TRUE, prints status messages. Default FALSE.

Details

Lineage data is sourced from The Taxonomicon, which is based on Systema Naturae 2000 (Brands, S.J., 1989 onwards). The depth of lineages in The Taxonomicon substantially exceeds that of other programmatic sources such as the Open Tree of Life, particularly for well-studied clades such as Dinosauria, where intermediate clades at the level of superfamilies, tribes, and named subclades are fully resolved.

Value

A character vector of clade names from root to tip, or NULL if retrieval fails.

See Also

get_lineage(), taxo_distance()

Examples

id <- get_taxonomicon_id("Tyrannosaurus")
lin <- get_lineage_by_id(id)
print(lin)

taxodist documentation built on May 6, 2026, 1:06 a.m.