science

The Zoological Record

The Zoological Record is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Zoological Record rather than just read about it. In short: 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, as The Record of Zoological Literature, and changed its name to the Zoological Record in 1870.

Key takeaways

The Zoological Record belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The Zoological Record to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Zoological Record from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

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, as The Record of Zoological Literature, and changed its name to the Zoological Record in 1870. From 1980 to 2004, the ZR was published by BIOSIS, from 2004 to 2016 it was published by Thomson Reuters, and from 2016 to the present it has been published by Clarivate Analytics. The print version ceased in 2016, but the publication continues as an electronic index.

History In 1864, Albert Günther and a group of zoologists associated with the British Museum and the Zoological Society came together to begin work on The Record of Zoological Literature, the first volume of which was published in 1865 by John Van Voorst, covering zoological literature that had been published in 1864. This work was intended to be an English language counterpart to the German language zoological index Archiv für Naturgeschichte, but without the Archiv's publication delays. After the first six volumes were published, Van Voorst withdrew as publisher due to a lack of profits from the work. Concerned zoologists then formed the Zoological Association and published volumes 7–22 (1870–1885) as the Zoological Record. In 1886, the Zoological Association passed publication duties on to the Zoological Society. In 1900 a competing publication, the International Catalogue of Scientific Literature, began publication. Section N of the Catalogue was intended to cover zoology, which caused subscription losses for the Zoological Record despite reviews stating that the Zoological Record was a superior publication. However, after negotiations, the Zoological Record itself became section N of the Catalogue. This arrangement ended with the advent of World War I. In 1980, the Zoological Society of London joined forces with BIOSIS to co-produce the Zoological Record. This co-production helped get rid of the three-year lag in the publication of the index by instituting a "catch up" program to bring The Zoological Record up-to-date. This program was completed in 1988. In January 2001, BIOSIS partnered with Cambridge Scientific Abstracts to produce a related database, Zoological Record Plus, which included abstracts from the Biological Sciences database produced by CSA. February 2004 saw the acquisition of BIOSIS by Thomson ISI, again changing the producer of The Zoological Record. Following the merger of Thomson and Reuters, Zoological Record was produced by Thomson Reuters. As of 2024, it is published by Clarivate Analytics in electronic format only.

Coverage The Zoological Record began coverage of different phyla in different years, and as phyla have changed in both name and classification over time, the sections covering those phyla have also changed. What follows is a list of the phyla covered in the Zoological Record for different years:

Zoological names There has never been a single official repository for the recording of zoological names, despite the widespread recognition in the scientific community of the need for a comprehensive database of living organisms. The ZR remains the unofficial record of zoological names since it indexes approximately 90% of the world's literature in zoology. In 1995, the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature was under development for the revised fourth edition (to be published in 1999). In the development, a recommendation was made for a process of "international notification" for new names in zoology. Since the Zoological Record indexes approximately 90% of the world literature on zoological nomenclature, it was seen as a good starting place for that process of notification. In response to this need, BIOSIS developed the Index to Organism Names (ION), a free and freely accessible database that serves as an index to those names published in the Zoological Record. When BIOSIS was purchased by Thomson Reuters, ION was updated with names from additional databases, such as BIOSIS Previews and Biological Abstracts. Similar biological nomenclature organizations and databases exist, such as the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA), the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), Species 2000, and the Taxonomic Database Working Group (TDWG). Web-based collaborative projects also exist, such as the Tree of Life Web Project, Encyclopedia of Life, Catalogue of Life, and Wikispecies.

Online availability Most of the issues of The Zoological Record, published between 1870 and 1922, are available online at the Biodiversity Heritage Library. More recent issues are not available at open access to the public in a digitised image format.

References

External links Official website Zoological record, issues between 1870 and 1922, at Biodiversity Heritage Library

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Zoological Record

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Zoological Record claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The Zoological Record before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The Zoological Record ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The Zoological Record

In research: The Zoological Record appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The Zoological Record in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The Zoological Record is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Bibliographic databases and indexes, Biodiversity databases, Clarivate, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Zoological Record outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study The Zoological Record in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Zoological Record means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The Zoological Record out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Zoological Record in simple terms?

Why does The Zoological Record matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The Zoological Record?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The Zoological Record.