AnimalBase is a service provided by the Zoological Institute of the University of Göttingen, Germany. Our work has initially been funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG.

It is our scope to provide copyright-free open access to zoological works, and provide manually verified lists of names of zoological genera and species as a free resource for the public. AnimalBase data are public domain. The public use of AnimalBase data is not restricted or conditioned. Those who contribute voluntarily data or pictures to AnimalBase do this under the understanding of contributing to a free public resource.

The literature is digitized by SUB Göttingen (our university library). In a first 2-year period (2003-2005) we have digitized nearly all taxonomically relevant zoological literature from the beginnings around 1550 until 1770 (about 400 works, in which 10,000 specific and generic names were established). In a second period (2008-2011) we have been digitizing more works (total number 1000-2000 volumes, comprising 600,000 pages).

Early zoological publications are digitized under the highest quality standards by the Center for Retrospective Digitization in Göttingen (Göttinger Digitalisierungszentrum, GDZ). If available, AnimalBase also provides links to the digitized public domain content of other providers, such as the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) or Gallica.

AnimalBase was established to link the early literature with the names of the animals described therein. The names of generic and specific taxa have all been entered manually into the database, including original and corrected spellings of names, type localities and page numbers where these names were originally established in the publications. Doing this we followed a standard established by our working group.

We compare the original works with Sherborn's Index Animalium, and at this occasion verify Sherborn's precious file. For the generic names we compare with Nomenclator Zoologicus.

Today our database should include all (or at least most) names of zoological taxa established from 1757 until  1788  . We are continuously progressing in the time-line, currently we are working on names established in the early 1790s.

Digitized pages and figures can be downloaded for non-profit purposes and we particularly would like to encourage public institutions and libraries in non-European countries to download and print out rare old books, bind them and store them in public libraries. A copyright note (SUB Göttingen) quoted on the outprints would be fine. The international scientific community is responsible for protecting the heritage of zoological science. Duplicating old books can contribute to reduce the danger that some day in the future precious infomation could get lost.

Since 2009 AnimalBase forms part of the BHL-Europe consortium. The Biodiversity Heritage Library for Europe is an EU project founded to coordinate digitization of biodiversity related literature and to create a main central portal where all works digitized in European and other projects could be accessed. Long-term preservation of digitized objects is another task BHL-Europe for which is funded. When it will be established, literature digitized in the AnimalBase project will also be accessible there.

The AnimalBase web presentation has remained stable and unmodified since 2005, it was initially designed to serve the oldest available browsers (this is why we do not work with frames). We are not planning to change this. Our server is hosted by Gesellschaft für Wissenschaftliche Datenverarbeitung Göttingen GWDG.

Collaborators have the right to login and enter data directly into the database. We encourage users to correct data if the given information is incorrect. Just follow the registration link (login is necessary to see who has created or modified information in the database). AnimalBase is a public project, there are no commercial interests involved. Non-collaborators can read every information and see all digitized pages, no login is necessary to see all contents.

Pictures of animals are more or less understood to have been released by the authors to the public domain, if not otherwise indicated. We would not encourage uploading copyrighted pictures without clear indication. The nature of AnimalBase is a free public resource.

AnimalBase Project Group:

Göttinger Digitalisierungszentrum (GDZ) | Changeable adjectives | Old type localities | Proposals for AnimalBase team comments on taxon homepages
Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung (useful for researching dates of publication of early works)  | WORMS World Register of Marine Species.

Cite AnimalBase itself as
AnimalBase Project Group, 2005-2010. AnimalBase. Early zoological literature online. - World wide web electronic publication (www.animalbase.uni-goettingen.de).

Cite particular pages in the form
Welter-Schultes, F. 2009. Species summary for Renea veneta. - www.animalbase.uni-goettingen.de (version 21-01-2009).

To give due credits to authors, please prefer citing the authors of the references of the respective records, if they are cited by us. In some contributions from before July 2005 we erroneously gave credit to FishBase, it should have been Catalog of Fishes.

Last deploy: Fr 20.05.2011

  by Francisco Welter-Schultes