Concept
Zoology
Overview
Zoology ( zoh-OL-ə-jee, UK also zoo-) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the structure, embryology, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct, and how they interact with their ecosystems. Zoology is one of the primary branches of biology. The term is derived from Ancient Greek ζῷον (zôion) 'animal' and λόγος (lógos) 'study of'.
Although humans have always been interested in the natural history of the animals they saw around them, and used this knowledge to domesticate certain species, the formal study of zoology can be said to have originated with Aristotle. He viewed animals as living organisms, studied their structure and development, and considered their adaptations to their surroundings and the function of their parts. Modern zoology has its origins during the Renaissance and early modern period, with Carl Linnaeus, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, Robert Hooke, Charles Darwin, Gregor Mendel and many others.
The study of animals has largely moved on to deal with form and function, adaptations, relationships between groups, behaviour and ecology. Zoology has increasingly been subdivided into disciplines such as classification, physiology, biochemistry and evolution. With the discovery of the structure of DNA by Francis Crick, James Watson and Rosalind Franklin in 1953, the realm of molecular biology opened up, leading to advances in cell biology, developmental biology and molecular genetics.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Zoology is discussed.
January 29th: Married at Maer. February and March: Some work on Corals and on Species Theory. March (part) and April: Working at Coral paper. Papers on a Rock seen on an Iceberg, and on the Parallel Roads of Glen Roy. Published "Journal and Remarks," being volume iii. of the "Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of H.M.S. 'Adventure' and 'Beagle,' etc." For the rest of the year, Corals and Zoology of the Voyage…
Charles Darwin, More Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 1
names the idea; opens on it
Science possesses two splendid examples of a systematic nomenclature; that of plants and animals, constructed by Linnæus and his successors, and that of chemistry, which we owe to the illustrious group of chemists who flourished in France toward the close of the eighteenth century. In these two departments, not only has every known species, or lowest Kind, a name assigned to it, but when new lowest Kinds are…
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive
states what it is; author linked in the graph
If it was what is termed constitutional, that is, if we do not know in what part of the animal economy it took its rise, or the precise nature of the disturbance which took place in that part, we are unable to determine which of the various derangements was cause and which effect; which of them were produced by one another, and which by the direct, though perhaps tardy, action of the original cause.
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic
states what it is; author linked in the graph
Some of them appear to have no sensation; in others it is very dull. The body of some of them is naturally fleshy, as of those which are called tethya; and the acalephe and the sponge entirely resemble plants; the progress is always gradual by which one appears to have more life and motion than another. 4. In the vital actions also we may observe the same manner. For vegetables which are produced from seed appear to…
Aristotle, Aristotle's History of Animals In Ten Books
states what it is; author linked in the graph
Volume III. Zoology. 50_s._ Or Part IX. Report on the Echinoidea, 36_s._ X. Report on the Pycnogonida, 14_s._ Volume IV. Zoology. 50_s._ Or Part XI. Report on the Anatomy of the Tubinares, 6_s._ XII.
R. W. Church, Dante. An essay. To which is added a translation of De Monarchia.
names the idea
Philosophers who discussed Zoology
- Julian Huxley
- John Stuart Mill
- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
- Richard Dawkins
- Roger Bacon
- Aristotle
- Jean Piaget
- Theophrastus
- Shem-Tov ibn Falaquera
Related ideas
- Empiricism
- Fossil
- Morphology (biology)
- Animal
- Greece
- Athens
- Geology
- Genetics
- Galen
- Post-classical history
- Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
- Albertus Magnus
- Embryology
- James Watson
- Linnaean taxonomy
- Anthropocentrism
- Molecular biology
- Molecule
- Organism
- Mesopotamia
- Microorganism
- Natural selection
- Species
- Nervous system
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Ancient Greek philosophy.