diff --git a/R/class2tree.R b/R/class2tree.R
index ff97aa40..6fc7b1e4 100644
--- a/R/class2tree.R
+++ b/R/class2tree.R
@@ -396,6 +396,36 @@ rank_indexing <- function (rankList) {
 #' @author Vinh Tran {tran@bio.uni-frankfurt.de}
 taxonomy_table_creator <- function (nameList, rankList) {
   colnames(nameList)[1] <- "tip"
+  # remove duplicated taxa (e.g. taxa with higher levels, that already belong 
+  # to the taxonomy string of other taxa)
+  duplicatedTaxa <- lapply(
+      nameList$X1,
+      function (x) {
+          matchs <-data.frame(which(nameList[,-1] == x, arr.ind=TRUE))
+          checkHigherRank <- lapply(
+              matchs$row,
+              function(y) {
+                  if (nameList[y,]$X1 != x) return(1)
+              }
+          )
+          if (length(unlist(checkHigherRank)) > 0) 
+              return(strsplit(x, "#", fixed = TRUE)[[1]][1])
+      }
+  )
+  if (length(unlist(duplicatedTaxa)) > 0) {
+      msg <- paste("WARNING:", length(unlist(duplicatedTaxa)))
+      if (length(unlist(duplicatedTaxa)) == 1)
+          msg <- paste(msg, "duplicated taxon has been ignored!")
+      else
+          msg <- paste(msg, "duplicated taxa have been ignored!")
+      if (length(unlist(duplicatedTaxa)) < 5) {
+          msg <- paste(msg, "Including: ")
+          msg <- c(msg, paste(unlist(duplicatedTaxa), collapse = "; "))
+      }   
+      message(msg)
+  }
+  nameList <- nameList[!(nameList$tip %in% unlist(duplicatedTaxa)),]
+  rankList <- rankList[!(rankList$tip %in% unlist(duplicatedTaxa)),]
   # get indexed rank list
   index2RankDf <- rank_indexing(rankList)
   # get ordered rank list
diff --git a/tests/testthat/test-class2tree.R b/tests/testthat/test-class2tree.R
index 3d8925bd..70ea8caa 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/test-class2tree.R
+++ b/tests/testthat/test-class2tree.R
@@ -11,7 +11,8 @@ spnames <- c("Klattia flava", "Trollius sibiricus", "Arachis paraguariensis",
 dupnames <- c("Mus musculus", "Escherichia coli",
               "Haloferax denitrificans", "Mus musculus")
 
-
+duptaxa <- c("Haliotis", "Haliotis cracherodii", "Haliotis rufescens", 
+             "Megabalanus californicus")
 
 test_that("internal functions of class2tree", {
   skip_on_cran() # uses secrets
@@ -76,7 +77,7 @@ test_that("class2tree returns the correct value and class", {
     anyDuplicated(gsub("\\.\\d+$", "", names(tr$classification))), 0)
 })
 
-test_that("class2tree will abort when input contains duplicate taxa", {
+test_that("class2tree will abort when input contains duplicated taxa", {
   skip_on_cran() # uses secrets
   vcr::use_cassette("class2tree_classification_dup_call", {
     out <- classification(dupnames, db = "ncbi", messages = FALSE)
@@ -84,3 +85,12 @@ test_that("class2tree will abort when input contains duplicate taxa", {
   expect_error(class2tree(out),
     "Input list of classifications contains duplicates")
 })
+
+test_that("class2tree detects duplicated taxa in higher levels", {
+    skip_on_cran() # uses secrets
+    vcr::use_cassette("class2tree_classification_dup_high_level", {
+        out <- classification(duptaxa, db = "ncbi", messages = FALSE)
+    })
+    tree <- class2tree(out)
+    expect_true(nrow(tree$classification) < length(duptaxa))
+})
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