hierarchicalAncestors: Get hierarchical ancestors

API: ac.uk:embl-ebi-ontology-lookup-service-ols-api
Endpoint: /ontologies/{ontologyId}/terms/{termId}/hierarchicalAncestors
Response format: application/json
Auth: none
Method: GET
Last Status: 200
Latency: 246ms

Description

Returns all hierarchical ancestors of the specified term (is_a relations only)

Parameters (5)

lang (string, query, optional, default: en)

Language code

ontologyId (string, path, required)

Ontology ID (e.g., 'go', 'efo', 'mondo')

page (integer, query, optional, default: 0)

Page number (0-indexed)

size (integer, query, optional, default: 20)

Page size

termId (string, path, required)

Term IRI (URL-encoded, typically double-encoded)

Examples (1)

Get hierarchical ancestors via termId probe-gate 
curl 'https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ols4/api/ontologies/go/terms/http%253A%252F%252Fpurl.obolibrary.org%252Fobo%252FBFO_0000004/hierarchicalAncestors'
import requests

resp = requests.get("https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ols4/api/ontologies/go/terms/http%253A%252F%252Fpurl.obolibrary.org%252Fobo%252FBFO_0000004/hierarchicalAncestors")
data = resp.json()
import zingu_apis

api = zingu_apis.api("embl-ebi-ontology-lookup-service-ols")
result = api.fetch("ontologies/{ontologyId}/terms/{termId}/hierarchicalAncestors")

for item in result:
    print(item)
const resp = await fetch("https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ols4/api/ontologies/go/terms/http%253A%252F%252Fpurl.obolibrary.org%252Fobo%252FBFO_0000004/hierarchicalAncestors");
const data = await resp.json();

Probe History

Latency

Status Codes

TimeStatusLatencySize
2026-04-16 00:54:15.574718 200 246ms
2026-04-15 00:49:55.052507 200 270ms
2026-04-14 02:18:27.110965 200 250ms
2026-04-12 15:59:54.063648 200 256ms
2026-04-10 02:59:01.855819 200 219ms
2026-04-09 00:38:29.779318 200 296ms
2026-04-08 00:12:32.439593 200 250ms
2026-04-07 01:41:49.958485 200 241ms
2026-04-06 04:22:36.425721 200 336ms
2026-04-05 14:17:18.370352 200 461ms