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Zoology www guide
Zoology 106 (2003): 249 © by Urban & Fischer Verlag http://www.urbanfischer.de/journals/zoology
Zoology www guide edited by Gregory Genikhovich Readers are welcome to send Website suggestions for future editions of Zoology to [email protected].
This Web guide focuses on taxonomic positions and evolutionary strategies. Every zoologist is working with an experimental organism of a certain species. We, of course, know the position of our own model and of other main experimental models in our field on the tree of life, but who has never had a problem facing an interesting article with a Latin species name, which he or she has never heard before or has long since forgotten? Help may come from the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) (http://www.itis.usda.gov/) This is an extremely well-organized Web page created in cooperation by several governmental institutions in the US. The site is in fact a powerful search engine, which gives you an up-to-date systematic position of an organism of interest, its scientific and common name as well as its taxonomic synonyms. The search string may contain scientific name, common name, taxon author’s name or TSN (taxonomic serial number). Although ITIS deals only with Eukaryotic organisms, especially those living in America, the amount of information pro-
vided is spectacular. It is also an open system where a user may submit new species, which did not have entrys before or were just discovered. Another site of interest is very different from the first one. Evolution has created enormous amount of mechanisms to adjust living things to their environment. Many of them are now used by humankind in technology. The Web site we would like to introduce is devoted to Bionics and Evolution Techniques (http://www.bionik.tu-berlin.de/intseit2/xstart2.html) and if the ITIS page is informative and convenient, the Bionics site is a lot of fun. What have plane constructors taken from birds? How can Cyanobacteria be used for production of hydrogen, which is deemed to be the fuel of the future? How are the nerve nets organized? What is underwater flight of a penguin like? All these questions are addressed at this provoking Web site. Unfortunately this site has a large and exciting part accessible only for German-speaking visitors, although the sections in English are definitely worth visiting.
0944-2006/03/106/03-249 $ 15.00/0
Zoology www guide edited by Gregory Genikhovich Readers are welcome to send Website suggestions for future editions of Zoology to [email protected].
This Web guide focuses on taxonomic positions and evolutionary strategies. Every zoologist is working with an experimental organism of a certain species. We, of course, know the position of our own model and of other main experimental models in our field on the tree of life, but who has never had a problem facing an interesting article with a Latin species name, which he or she has never heard before or has long since forgotten? Help may come from the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) (http://www.itis.usda.gov/) This is an extremely well-organized Web page created in cooperation by several governmental institutions in the US. The site is in fact a powerful search engine, which gives you an up-to-date systematic position of an organism of interest, its scientific and common name as well as its taxonomic synonyms. The search string may contain scientific name, common name, taxon author’s name or TSN (taxonomic serial number). Although ITIS deals only with Eukaryotic organisms, especially those living in America, the amount of information pro-
vided is spectacular. It is also an open system where a user may submit new species, which did not have entrys before or were just discovered. Another site of interest is very different from the first one. Evolution has created enormous amount of mechanisms to adjust living things to their environment. Many of them are now used by humankind in technology. The Web site we would like to introduce is devoted to Bionics and Evolution Techniques (http://www.bionik.tu-berlin.de/intseit2/xstart2.html) and if the ITIS page is informative and convenient, the Bionics site is a lot of fun. What have plane constructors taken from birds? How can Cyanobacteria be used for production of hydrogen, which is deemed to be the fuel of the future? How are the nerve nets organized? What is underwater flight of a penguin like? All these questions are addressed at this provoking Web site. Unfortunately this site has a large and exciting part accessible only for German-speaking visitors, although the sections in English are definitely worth visiting.
0944-2006/03/106/03-249 $ 15.00/0