Handbook

Public Data Portal

Searching the Public Data Portal

The BOLD Public Data Portal is a database of all of the public records on BOLD, including those in the early data release phase of the iBOL project, where information is still masked. This database can be used to access and download specimen data and sequences.

Public users can search the Public Data Portal using taxonomy, geography (country and state/province), and institution keywords, or by using Sample ID or BOLD Process ID to find individual records.

Any combination of keywords into the search bar. For example, searching "Lepidoptera Canada" will return all of the Lepidoptera records collected in Canada. Searching "Lepidoptera Canada -Ontario" will return the same results, but with the specimens collected in Ontario omitted.
For further details and examples can be entered for using the search functionality, see the search help section that is available by clicking on the help button to the right of the search bar.

The search results will display a list of the public records that match the searched terms, as illustrated below. Toggling to "BINs" next to the search button will convert the list to all BINs available.

Public Data Portal results from a search for "Chordata"

Specimen Record

The record page gives information on the specimen identifier, taxonomy, specimen details, collection data (including collection site), sequence information, specimen image details, and attribution details. The figure below shows the details page for a particular record. A record page will reference a BIN when one is available and provides links to GenBank records.

Public Record Page