There may be a Perl interface for fetching and processing your data, if it's from a well known source, e.g. Ensembl, Entrez, KEGG, *Prot, etc. For example:

• http://ensemblgenomes.org/info/access/eg_api
• Bio::DB::SwissProt
• Bio::KEGG
• Bio::DB::EMBL
• Bio::DB::Taxonomy

The usage can be as simple as this:

use Bio::DB::Taxonomy;
my $db = Bio::DB::Taxonomy->new(-source => 'entrez');
# use NCBI Entrez over HTTP
my $taxonid = $db->get_taxonid('Homo sapiens');
 
# get a taxon
my $taxon = $db->get_taxon(-taxonid => $taxonid);
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bw, bliako