Authority Lists

Have you found a name you think we've misspelled? Wonder why one of our names is different from a name you see elsewhere? Trying to sign up to contribute a species account but getting a nasty "Check your spelling" message?

Classification is a human undertaking. Most systematists agree that classification (how organisms are named and grouped into Families and Orders and Classes) ought to reflect what we know about how organisms are related to each other. Yet, what we know is constantly changing, hopefully for the better. And like all human undertakings, there are controversies over what exactly we do know.

There is no single correct classification, just classifications that are currently accepted by most systematists.

We have used a number of online Authority Lists that help us standardize and consistently organize the information on our site. Taken together, these lists are far from complete. Errors and omissions certainly do crop up. Some of them have been updated but aren't integrated into our site yet. And even if we have the names, we might not have any pictures, sounds, or text yet.

Mammals

We have the names of all known mammals, from Mammal Species of the World. This list is due to be updated soon. We will then update our list to reflect those changes.

Birds

We have the names of almost all known birds. The scientific names (genus and species) follow the 3rd edition of The ’Howard and Moore’ Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World, which covers avian taxonomy from family level to subspecies. For higher levels of classification we follow the classification used by the University of Michigan Bird Division to organize its online database.

Reptiles

We have the names of almost all known reptiles. EMBL Reptile Database is our authority, primarily because it is the only comprehensive online resource available. We used a 2001 CD-ROM from EMBL to build our database, with only minor modifications since, so there are known differences between our classification and the one that appears at the EMBL site.

Other vertebrates

Right now, we are using ITIS -- Integrated Taxonomic Information System for all other vertebrates. In particular, names of non-North American species are missing for amphibians and fish. We manually check these names using AmphibiaWeb and FishBase.

Invertebrates

We also use ITIS for invertebrate classification. Entire groups are missing (for example, Arachnids) and in many groups, non-North American species names are missing. For specifics, see: ITIS Data Status. We desperately seek online authority lists for any invertebrate group.

General comments

Note that with few exceptions, we cover only living animals. Our higher classification generally follows Hickman, Roberts, and Larson 2003; other sources are explained in the text for each group.