Zoology

Zoology (/zoʊˈɒlədʒi/) is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct, and how they interact with their ecosystems.  The term is derived from Ancient Greek ζῷον, zōion ('animal'), and λόγος, logos ('knowledge', 'study').

Ornithology, a branch of zoology dealing with the study of birds.

Here we discuss both in this section.

History of Zoology

Much of the early information about human anatomy came from the dissection and study of animals, although some efforts were made to understand and classify animals.  It was during the Renaissance that the study of zoology began to separate from human anatomy, as great artists who sought to understand the makeup of both men and animals emerged.  Great natural scientists, such as Konrad Gesner (1516-1565), recognized as the father of zoology, developed the field as a scientific inquiry.  Other investigators, such as Guillaume Rondelet (1507-1566) and Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605), contributed accurate observations of animals.  Natural philosopher and theologian John Ray (1627-1705) also sought to understand and classify all known animals.

The classification and physiological studies by these early naturalists provided the foundation upon which the zoology of the nineteenth century was unified by the theory of evolution.  Comparison of animals allowed an understanding of how various animals might have developed.  Zoology in the late twentieth century developed as a major force behind the understanding of total interrelationships and the ecology movement.

Aristotle (384-322 b.c.) first attempted a comprehensive classification of animals.

He was the first to establish some type of hierarchy of animals based on the logic of structure.

Roman scholar Pliny the Elder (a.d. 23-79) wrote a major work on natural history.

The great physician Galen (129-199?) dissected only animals for his studies of human anatomy, and his works became the standard for use in medicine throughout the Middle Ages.

In the twelfth century The idea emerged that medical practice should be made a division of the "natural" part of philosophy, as Aristotle had done. By the mid-thirteenth century.

These ideas were famous during Renaissance in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Most important of all was the invention of the printing press with movable type by Johann Gutenberg (1398?-1468) around 1455. This enabled scholars to write about their findings and ideas,

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was motivated to study animals, comparing them to the physical form of man.  He was the first to describe the homology, or the arrangements of the bones and joints, of a horse.  He noted how they were alike and how they differed from the human.  Homology would become an important concept in classifying distinct units, and later play a part in the study of evolution.

Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564), the great anatomist and illustrator, encouraged the new spirit of investigation by dissecting humans, he also used animal parts to show structures such as the kidney.  These artists and early anatomists promoted knowledge through dissection and a new spirit of investigation.  Francis Bacon (1561-1626) gave increasing emphasis to direct observation and experiment, which caught on in the seventeenth century.

Gesner was the first botanist to grasp the importance of floral structures to establish a systematic key of classification of plants.  He drew over 1,500 plates himself for his Opera botanica, published in 1551 and 1571.

Since Gesner was the first naturalist to sketch fossils, he is considered to the first paleontologist.

Many other people who made famous discoveries were interested in animals.  William Harvey (1578-1657) demonstrated the circulation of the blood and function of the heart, arteries, and veins.  The invention of the microscope by Anton van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) assisted in comparing fine structures that previously could not be seen with the unaided eye.  Jan Swammerdam (1637-1680) and Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694), who discovered the role of the capillaries, added to the body of information about animals.

The work of the great naturalists culminated in the work of Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778).  His binomial system of nomenclature (genus and species) and Systema naturae (1735) marked the beginning of the modern system of classification and helped define zoology as a distinct discipline of study.

And than 18 and 19th centuries zoological knowledge is on its peak and now zoology is a major branch of science which discuss about birds animals their systems etc .