| More docs on the ARB website. See also index of helppages. Last update on 22. May 2026 .

Main topics: ARB: a Short Introduction Glossary What are Genes ? | Related topics: What is an Alignment ? What are Marked Species? Selected Species and Cursor Position
# What are Species ? DESCRIPTION ## DESCRIPTION
### One species is one database entry containing many database entries describing the species and one or more sequences (every sequence belongs to a different alignment). ### A species is not necessarily consistent with a taxonomic species.
    [Database field name]           [Comment]
    name                            Unique identifier of the species
                                    (max 8 characters long)
    acc                             Accession number
    full_name                       (User defined) name of the species
### strain ### author ### journal
    ali_16s/data                    a 16s sequence (part of the 16s alignment)
    ali_23s/data                    a 23s sequence
    ali_.../data                    a ... sequence
### The description of the alignment, e.g. type or length, is not stored in every species but in an alignment description.