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ZooBank is an
open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...
website intended to be the official
International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) is an organization dedicated to "achieving stability and sense in the scientific naming of animals". Founded in 1895, it currently comprises 26 commissioners from 20 countries. Orga ...
(ICZN) registry of zoological nomenclature. Any nomenclatural acts (e.g. publications that create or change a taxonomic name) need to be registered with ZooBank to be "officially" recognized by the
ICZN Code of Nomenclature The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) is a widely accepted convention in zoology that rules the formal scientific naming of organisms treated as animals. It is also informally known as the ICZN Code, for its publisher, the I ...
. Life Science Identifiers (LSIDs) are used as the
globally unique identifier A universally unique identifier (UUID) is a 128-bit label used for information in computer systems. The term globally unique identifier (GUID) is also used. When generated according to the standard methods, UUIDs are, for practical purposes, u ...
for ZooBank registration entries. The ZooBank prototype was seeded with data from
Index to Organism Names The Index to Organism Names (ION) is an extensive compendium of scientific names of taxa at all ranks in the field of zoology, compiled from the Zoological Record (later supplemented with content from Sherborn's ''Index Animalium'') by its operator ...
(http://www.organismnames.com), which was compiled from the scientific literature in ''
Zoological Record ''The Zoological Record'' (''ZR'') is an electronic index of zoological literature that also serves as the unofficial register of scientific names in zoology. It was started as a print publication in 1864 by the Zoological Society of London, a ...
'' now owned by
Thomson Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational media conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where it is headquartered at the Bay Adelaide Centre. Thomson Reuters was created by the Thomson Corp ...
.


History

ZooBank was officially proposed in 2005 by the executive secretary of ICZN. The registry was live on 10 August 2006 with 1.5 million species entered. The first ZooBank LSIDs were issued on 1 January 2008, precisely 250 years after 1 January 1758, which is the date defined by the
ICZN Code The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) is a widely accepted convention in zoology that rules the formal scientific naming of organisms treated as animals. It is also informally known as the ICZN Code, for its publisher, the I ...
as the official start of scientific zoological nomenclature. ''
Chromis abyssus ''Chromis abyssus'' is a species of damselfish first discovered in 1997 and described in 2008. The long fish only lives more than below the surface of the Pacific Ocean around the coast of the Ngemelis Islands, Palau. Adults have been observe ...
'' was the first species entered into the ZooBank system with a timestamp of 2008-01-01T00:00:02.


Contents

Four main types of data objects are stored in ZooBank. ''Nomenclatural acts'' are governed by the
ICZN Code of Nomenclature The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) is a widely accepted convention in zoology that rules the formal scientific naming of organisms treated as animals. It is also informally known as the ICZN Code, for its publisher, the I ...
, and are typically "original descriptions" of new scientific names, however other acts, such as
emendation An emendation is an alteration to a term, for a specific technical reason: * Emendation (textual), altering a word to make sense, e.g. when incomplete or assumed to have been copied incorrectly * Emendation (zoology), altering the spelling of th ...
s and lectotypifications, are also governed by the ICZN code and technically require registration by ZooBank. ''Publications'' include journal articles and other publications containing Nomenclatural Acts. ''Authors'' records the
academic authorship Academic authorship of journal articles, books, and other original works is a means by which academics communicate the results of their scholarly work, establish priority for their discoveries, and build their reputation among their peers. Auth ...
of Nomenclatural Acts. ''Type Specimens'' record the
biological type In biology, a type is a particular specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to anchor or centralizes the ...
specimens of animals which are provisionally registered, until the bodies responsible for such types implement their own registries. In addition to those,
periodical A periodical literature (also called a periodical publication or simply a periodical) is a published work that appears in a new edition on a regular schedule. The most familiar example is a newspaper, but a magazine or a journal are also example ...
s which have published articles are also entities within the system, providing access to a list of "Nomenclatural Acts" published in the periodical over time.


Electronic publications

Traditionally, taxonomic data was published in journals or books. However, with the increase in electronic publications, the ICZN established new rules that include e-publications, especially electronic only publications. Such publications are now regulated by amendments of ICZN Articles 8, 9, 10, 21 and 78. Technically, nomenclatural acts that are published in electronic only papers are not recognized if they have not been registered with ZooBank and are considered as "non-existent".


See also

*
Plazi Plazi is a Swiss-based international non-profit association supporting and promoting the development of persistent and openly accessible digital bio-taxonomic literature. Plazi is cofounder of the Biodiversity Literature Repository and is maintai ...


References


External links

*
ZooBank
papers and mailing list {{DEFAULTSORT:Zoobank Zoological nomenclature Open-access archives Internet properties established in 2006 Online taxonomy databases