This site, by the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology, functions like a natural history encyclopedia by offering information about the structure and classification of birds, basic concepts of ecology and evolutionary biology. Brief reports are provided on dozens of birds. The information provided includes: diversity, habitat, systematic and taxonomic history, physical description, development, reproduction, behavior, etc.
This site, by the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology, functions like a natural history encyclopedia by offering information about the structure and classification of birds, basic concepts of ecology and evolutionary biology. Brief reports are provided on dozens of birds. The information provided includes: diversity, habitat, systematic and taxonomic history, physical description, development, reproduction, behavior, etc.
This site offers a searchable listing of endangered mammals worldwide. Species are also indexed by common and scientific name, group and country. Each entry includes a species profile, status and trends, biological and ecological data, and references. The site also includes links to related organizations, web sites and publications.
"The Canadian National Collection (CNC) of Insects, Arachnids and Nematodes is considered one of the best collections of its kind in the world in terms of size, species representation, and level of curation."
This site is backed with great information such as birding basics (including a Gear Guide), News and Events, a comprehensive bird guide, and conservation. It includes sample sounds from the lab's extensive library of animal sounds and videos (covering more than just birds).
All of Charles Darwin's publications have been digitized and are freely available here. Darwin Online includes handwritten manuscripts, notebooks, diaries and journals.
The Directory of Open Access Journals was launched in 2003 at Lund University, Sweden, with 300 open access journals and today contains more than 10000 open access journals covering all areas of science, technology, medicine, social science and humanities.
"Encyclopedia of Life is a global partnership between the scientific community and the general public. The goal is to make freely available to anyone knowledge about all the world's organisms. Expert curators ensure the quality of the core collection by authenticating materials submitted by diverse projects and individual contributors."
This database covers nearly all fish species known (over 33,000). The search form offers multiple search and browse options including searching by scientific or common name; by country or by author's name (for reference).
This is a collaboration of natural history museums worldwide working on establishing a network of collections data for researchers. It includes links to similar projects for other taxa. It is partially funded by the National Science Foundation.
Biology librarian Diane Schmidt, at the University of Illinois, compiled this guide, which merges with her book: A Guide to Field Guides: Identifying the Natural History of North America. The result is a searchable database of field guides for animals, plants and more from North America and around the world.
MarineBio is a non-profit organization. This site contains great links to other resources including lists of endangered species, a newsletter, and more. Covers all marine taxa, including reptiles and birds as well as sharks/rays, cephalopods and marine mammals.
Searchable ornithological research archive hosted by the University of New Mexico libraries. SORA is an open-access ornithological publications archive with detailed material documenting the history of ornithology in North America over the last 120 years.
Science 2.0 strives to be an open source science community. It contains articles written by members from all disciplines. It contains grey literature (that which is not controlled by commercial publishers). Science blogging is also available on this site.
Taxonomic Web Sites
There are a number of sites that keep up with the ever-changing names of animals and the knowledge of their even more rapidly changing relationships. They include:
The ICZN was founded in 1895 and oversees the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. It is supported by and includes links to many organizations and supports Zoobank, the world register of animal names.
From the national Institutes of Health, "the Taxonomy Database is a curated classification and nomenclature for all of the organisms in the public sequence database. This currently represents about 10% of the described species of life on the planet."
Tree of Life contains not only taxonomic information, but also has reference and many links. It is an excellent source of cladistics information, so that you can easily trace relationships among organisms, and it also makes clear where there is controversy.
The Biodiversity Heritage Library is a consortium of ten of the world's largest natural history libraries, which have agreed to digitize sections of their print holdings and make this information freely available over the Internet. It includes items either out of copyright or for which copyright permissions have been obtained. Current members include the American Museum of Natural History, The Field Museum, two libraries at Harbard University (the Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology and the Botany Libraries), the Marine Biological Laboratory/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Missouri Botanical Garden and the Smithsonian Institution.
The USFWS is a rich, well-maintained and useful site, with links to topics such as legislation, grants, permits, as well as species information and much more!
U.S. Department of the Interior Home Page
Several of the DoI's bureaus deal with the environment of the United States:◦National Park Service
◦Fish & Wildlife Service
◦Bureau of Land Management
◦Geological Survey
◦Bureau of Reclamation
