AnimalBase :: search page

AnimalBase is a service provided by the Zoological Institute of the University of Göttingen, Germany. Our work has 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 zoological taxa described from 1757 until 1775 . We are continuously progressing in the time-line, currently we are working on names established in the mid-1780s.

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 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 f�r Wissenschaftliche Datenverarbeitung G�ttingen GWDG. In the browser headline you should read http://www.animalbase.uni-goettingen.de. If you followed a link from Google search engine you may read this term in the browser headline: http://134.76.36.206:1977/. This is an auxiliary server and does not allow you to see pictures. We do not know why Google has listed this server. Just replace this term by the correct one http://www.animalbase.uni-goettingen.de/ and you will be able to see the pictures. .

Collaborators have the right to login and enter data directly into the database. Non-collaborators can read every information and see all digitized pages, no login is necessary to see all the information.

AnimalBase Project Group:

Francisco Welter-Schultes, Zoologisches Institut Göttingen (project leader) (e-mail: fwelter#gwdg.de (replace # by @)

Thomas Westphal (programming)

Taxonomists who entered data within the AnimalBase project:

Alexandra Lutze (since 2004)
Rebecca Klug (2004-2005)
Verena Feuerstein (2005 and since 2010)
Frank Wieland (since 2009)
Angela Görlich (since 2009)
Oliver Eikel (since 2009)
Lydia Betz (2009-2010)
Margarethe Becker (since 2009)
Johanna Braun (since 2009)
Diana Fritzlar (2009-2010)
Henriette Horn (2009-2010)
Silja Koechy (2009-2010)
Rasmus Liedigk (2009-2010)
Theresa Schattenberg (2009-2010)
Daniel-Timon Spanka (since 2009)
Andrea Gräbe-Treger (since 2010)

Göttinger Digitalisierungszentrum (GDZ) | Changeable adjectives | Old type localities
Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung (useful for researching dates of publication of early works).

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 respectice records, if they are quoted by us. In some contributions from before July 2005 we erroneously gave credit to FishBase, it should have been Catalog of Fishes.

Last deploy: Mo 12.07.2010

by Francisco Welter-Schultes

Links to other servers providing digitized zoological literature
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	Biodiversity Heritage Library BHL (Washington DC)	Non-profit joint venture of several North American libraries, digitizing mainly English zoological and botanical literature. Since May 2009 we are a member of the BHL-Europe consortium, so that our own digitized works will also be visible at the BHL-Europe website.
	Gallica, Bibliothèque Nationale de France (Paris)	Early literature of any kind, mostly from France. Many important zoological works were digitized in the mid-1990s from Leiden Museum resources. Images in PDF format, pagination well documented, figures of old scans usually in very bad quality. We have linked to many works digitized by Gallica since 2005, and unfortunately many links have not remained stable and in 2009 they were outdated. Gallica has always had a very bad search function, and it still is bad, you will not always find digitized titles although they are there. Hopefully BHL-Europe will improve the situation.
	Göttinger Digitalisierungszentrum (GDZ), Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen	Some 750 early zoological works from before 1800, mostly from Göttingen library resources. Figures usually in very good quality.
	Digital Collections at Oxford University	Digital Collections at Oxford University, some zoological projects, sorted by collections, colour plates in high quality (JPG).
BioSophia	BioSophia (Italy)	An Italian non-profit corporation, digitized articles mainly on molluscs from the late 1800s. ZIP files for download, unpacking to either image files, or OCR'd text/HTML files combined with JPG image files for figures. Figures are in excellent quality.
	Biblioteca Complutense, Universidad Complutense de Madrid	Several very old zoological works from UC Madrid library resources. JPG images, figures not very good.
	Digital Library, Smithsonian Institution Libraries (Washington DC)	Some zoological works, above all Sherborn's comprehensive lists.
	Universitätsbibliothek Bielefeld	Some German-language journals from the 1700s. GIF images, plate figures in bad quality.
	American Museum of Natural History (New York)	AMNH journals since 1881 online (American Museum Novitates, Anthropological Papers, Bulletin and Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History). PDF files.
	Academy of Natural Sciences (Philadelphia)	Several North American zoological works from the mid-1800s.
	University of Wisconsin Digital Collections	Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material Culture, some beautiful zoological works digitized.
	Core Historical Literature of Agriculture (CHLA), Cornell University (Ithaca, New York)	Agricultural literature, including two North American entomological journals from the 1800s.
	Library of 19th Century Science (Hanover, New Hampshire)	Challenger expedition and old geological literature from the 1800s, including taxonomical works, digitized from Dartmouth College library holdings, by David C. Bossard in private business. JPG files, figures of excellent quality.
	Philological Museum, University of Birmingham	Analytic bibliography of online neo-Latin titles. Many links to online early zoological literature published in Latin.
	Linnaeus Link project, Natural History Museum (London)	Links to subjects related to Carl von Linné.

Explanation of symbols used in this web presentation
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	Digitized monograph (no plates) online
	Digitized monograph with plates online
	Digitized very old book (prior to 1620) online
	Digitized journal article (no plates) online
	Digitized journal article with plates online
	Work has been digitized (received a PPN number), but is not yet online
	Scanned PDF file (usually in bad quality without metadata) online
	Work is currently being digitized, but we are still dreaming, it might be online somewhen in the next 2 years if everything goes well. Digitization is a long and time intensive process. It consists of several independent steps, with long time gaps in between. Scanning, quality control, image control and creating metadata are the most important steps.
	All new names of taxa of this publication were entered following AnimalBase standard
	The original description of this name of a taxon is online in a digitized version