What is ZooBank?
ZooBank is intended as the official registry of Zoological Nomenclature,
according to the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN).
Learn more about ZooBank here.
What Gets Registered in ZooBank?
Currently, ZooBank accomodates the registration of four different kinds of data objects:
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Nomenclatural Acts: Published usages of scientific names for animals, which represent
nomenclatural acts as governed by the ICZN Code of Nomenclature. Most of these acts are
‘original descriptions’ of new scientific names for animals, but other acts may
include emendations, lectotypifications, and other acts as governed by the ICZN Code.
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Publications: Publications that contain Nomenclatural Acts, as defined above.
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Authors: Names of Authors of Publications, as defined above.
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Type Specimens: Type specimens for scientific names of animals. The registration of Type Specimens
is considered provisional, with the expectation that natural history collections holding Types will
eventually implement their own registries, to which ZooBank will link.
How Can I Search the ZooBank Registry?
Near the upper-right corner of the screen, you will see a text box and a button labelled
‘Search’. Enter search text in the box and click the ‘Search’ button
to see matching ZooBank records of Nomenclatural Acts, Publications, and Authors.
Entering multiple words separated by spaces will return records containing all of the individual words.
Entering multiple words separated by underscore characters (_), or enclosed within double quotes ("...")
will search for the exact phrase or set of words in sequence.
Searches are
not case-sensitive.
How Can I Contribute to the ZooBank Registry?
We are currently developing the features that will allow you to login to the ZooBank site and
add Nomenclatural Acts, Publications, Authors, and Type Specimens
directly into the ZooBank Registry database. Many other fetures are also currently under development,
and will be added to this site in the coming months.