Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!rutgers!mailrus!ames!amelia!eos!shelby!csli!wilson
From: wilson@csli.Stanford.EDU (Nathan Wilson)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: on-line catalogs of species
Keywords: taxonomy classification
Message-ID: <13932@csli.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 4 Jun 90 22:21:17 GMT
Sender: wilson@csli.Stanford.EDU (Nathan Wilson)
Organization: Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford U.
Lines: 26


I've been wondering if there are any computerized 'guidebooks' to
species available.  Anything from the equivalent of the Golden Book
field guides through scientifically exhastive descriptions of some
subset of the biological kingdoms.

It seems that it would be wonderful to have at ones fingertips an
exhaustive description of all the known species, along with
descriptions and photos (when possible) of them.  I realize that there
are all kinds of problems with this proposal, e.g. the taxonomical
system is not set in stone, species is not really a well defined term
for all organisms etc, but I would be interested in hear about any
attempts that have been or are being made in this regard.  Also what
kinds of abilities would people like from such a database?  Obvious
things might be, methods for identification (dichotomous keys drive me
nuts sometimes!), where the species is found, has it been successfully
domesticated/cultured/bred-in-captivity, what are related species, who
discovered the species, all the names for the species (scientific and
common in different languages), and cross indexing of all the above.

Nathan Wilson
Teleos Research
nathan%teleos.com@ai.sri.com

(PS I'm fairly new to this group so if this has already been
discussed please e-mail me a summary. -Thanks)