Principles of systematic zoology

Systematics is the study of the diversity of animals and plants and their evolutionary relationships. Taxonomy deals with the classification of organisms, giving them scientific names and categorizing them on scientific basis. Taxonomy is the practice and science of classification. The word comes from the Greek, taxis, 'order' nomos, law' or 'science. Taxonomies, which are composed of taxonomic units known as taxa (singular taxon), are frequently hierarchical in structure, commonly displaying parent-child relationships. Evolutionary taxonomy, evolutionary systematics or Darwinian classification is a branch of biological classification that seeks to classify organisms using a combination of phylogenetic relationship (shared descent), progenitor-descendant relationship (serial descent), and degree of evolutionary change. This type of taxonomy may consider whole taxarather than single species, so that groups of species can be inferred as giving rise to new groups. The concept found its most well-known form in the modern evolutionary synthesisof the early 1940s. The respective role of classification and nomenclature are often misunderstood. The identification, delimitation and ranking of taxonomic categories are zoological tasks. The role of nomenclature is merely to provide labels for these taxonomic categories in order to facilitate communication amongst biologist. We cannot speak of objects, if they do not have names. The book will be a landmark and shall hopefully be very useful for those workers and planners who are involved in the studies related to the diversified animals and also throw light on their present status in the context the threats and need for their future conservation.