install.packages("SSOAP", repos = "http://www.omegahat.org/R", dependencies = TRUE, type = "source") library(SSOAP) w = processWSDL("http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=soap&wsdl=1") iface = genSOAPClientInterface(, w) AphiaID = iface@functions$getAphiaID("Solea solea",1,('http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=soap')) print(AphiaID) #should output '[0] 127160'