Its now possible to view and work with a list of species layers for a genus or higher taxon through a OGC compliant desktop tool such as uDIG or ArcGIS.This allows users to render the data for multiple species on a map within a desktop top with some styling options for the layers. Links to WMS server GetCapabilities documents are on species and higher taxon pages. To retrieve a list of species layers, first navigate to a higher taxon e.g. Acacia
![Left panel on species page Left panel on species page](http://www.ala.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Screen-Shot-2012-10-11-at-4.02.35-PM.png)
Clicking the “JSON/WMS/RDF” button on the left hand panel will give the following popup which includes a link to a WMS GetCapabilities document.
This document can then be used in uDIG to retrieve a list of layers available for this higher taxon.
![Screen Shot 2012-10-11 at 4.08.33 PM Species layer listing in uDIG](http://www.ala.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Screen-Shot-2012-10-11-at-4.08.33-PM1.png)
These tools will then allow the rendering of multiple layers.
![Multiple species layers Multiple species layers](http://www.ala.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Screen-Shot-2012-10-11-at-4.15.13-PM.png)
Individual record information can be retrieved through tool.
![Record information Record information](http://www.ala.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Screen-Shot-2012-10-11-at-4.10.11-PM.png)
Below is a screenshot from ArcGIS.
For more details on the WMS services, there is some documentation here.