Cheryl Smith, age 14, of Dodge City, Kan., for her question:
WHEN DID THE SCIENCE OF ZOOLOGY DEVELOP?
Zoology is the branch of biology devoted to the study of the animal kingdom. Until the Middle Ages, zoology was a conglomeration of folklore, superstition, misconception and descriptions of animals, but during the 12th century it began to emerge as a science.
Perhaps the most important naturalist of the era was a German scholar named St. Albertus Magnus, who disproved much of the superstitious theory associated with biology and reintroduced the work of Aristotle.
Earlier, Aristotle (384 322 B.C.) was the first to devise a system of classifying animals that recognized a basic unity of plan among diverse organisms. He arranged groups of animals according to mode of reproduction and habitat.
In the late 1400s, the anatomical studies of Leonardo da Vinci were far in advance of the age. His dissections and comparisons of the structure of human and other animals led him to important conclusions. His work definitely advanced the science of zoology.
Classification dominated zoology throughout most of the 17th and 18th centuries. A Swedish botanist named Carolus Linnaeus developed a system of nomenclature that is still used today: the binomial system of genus and species. He also developed taxonomy as a discipline.
English naturalist John Hay relied upon the form of teeth and toes to differentiate mammals and upon beak shape to classify birds. And another leading systematist of the era was a French biologist named Comte Georges Leclerc de Buffon.
Although the word "cell" was introduced in the 17th century by the English scientist Robert Hooke, it was not until 1839 that two Germans, Matthias Schleiden and Theodor Schwann, proved that the cell is the common structural unit of living things. The cell concept provided impetus for progress in embryology, founded by the Russian scientist Karl von Baer, and for the development by a Frenchman, Claude Bernard, of the study of animal physiology.
The organization of scientific expeditions in the 18th and 19th centuries gave trained observers the opportunity to study plant and animal life throughout the world. The most famous expedition was the voyage of the "Beagle" in the early 1830s. During this voyage, Charles Darwin observed the plant and animal life of South America and Australia and developed his theory of evolution by natural selection.
In the 20th century zoology has become more diversified and less confined to such traditional concerns as classification and anatomy. Broadening its range to include such studies as genetics, ecology and biochemistry, zoology has become an interdisciplinary field employing a great variety of techniques to obtain knowledge of the animal kingdom.
The current study of zoology has two main focuses: on particular taxonomic groups and on the structures and processes common to most of them.
Taxonomically oriented studies concentrate on the different divisions of animal life.