School of Biodiversity, One Health & Veterinary Medicine

Zoology Museum Taxonomy Updates

The links below provide up to date information on the current taxonomy of the kingdom Animalia. Since the current displays in the Zoology Museum were installed in the late 1980s there have been many changes made at all levels of taxonomy, from new Phyla being discovered, to groups that were thought to be Phyla being moved to Order or Family level in other Phyla. At the same time more species have been discovered and the relationships between them has been made clearer through the use of molecular techniques such as DNA analysis. 

Each page provides the Phylum name, the name derivation (often the Latin or Greek origin of the word), the names of the Classes, the number of Orders, Families, Genus, and known Species, the Earliest Fossil Record in millions of years ago (mya), the Habitat (Marine, Freshwater, Terrestrial, Brackish, Parasitic), the Size Range of the species within the group and any further Notes. 

In the Invertebrate groups Classes known only from the fossil record have been excluded apart from those that are included in the displays. Only extant and recently extinct species are included in the Vertebrate counts

The source for the majority of the information is the Catalogue of Life, a worldwide collaboration of over 3,000 taxonomists that aims to list all known species. However, other databases such as Eschmeyer's Catalogue of Fishes, the International Ornithological Congress World Bird List and the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) have been used for certain groups due to more accurate information being available from theses sources. All these databases are being constantly updated as new discoveries are made or as old records are verified.