Editing Zoology (section)

==History==
{{Main|History of zoology through 1859|History of zoology (1859–present)}}
{{For timeline}}
[[File:Gessner Conrad 1516-1565.jpg|thumb|left|[[Conrad Gessner]] (1516–1565). His {{Lang|la|[[Historia animalium (Gessner book)|Historiae animalium]]}} is considered the beginning of modern zoology.]]

The history of zoology traces the study of the [[animal|animal kingdom]] from ancient to modern times. Prehistoric people needed to study the animals and plants in their environment to exploit them and survive. Cave paintings, engravings and sculptures in France dating back 15,000 years show bison, horses, and deer in carefully rendered detail. Similar images from other parts of the world illustrated mostly the animals hunted for food and the savage animals.<ref name="Fellowes2020">{{cite book|author=Mark Fellowes|title=30-Second Zoology: The 50 most fundamental categories and concepts from the study of animal life|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gkzODwAAQBAJ|year=2020|publisher=Ivy Press|isbn=978-0-7112-5465-7|access-date=2021-06-04 |archive-date=2024-06-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240612073743/https://books.google.com/books?id=gkzODwAAQBAJ|url-status=live}}</ref>

The [[Neolithic Revolution]], which is characterized by the [[domestication of animals]], continued throughout Antiquity. Ancient knowledge of wildlife is illustrated by the realistic depictions of wild and domestic animals in the Near East, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, including husbandry practices and techniques, hunting and fishing. The invention of writing is reflected in zoology by the presence of animals in Egyptian hieroglyphics.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.um.es/cepoat/egipcio/wp-content/uploads/egyptianhierogly.pdf |title=Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary: Introduction |author=[[E. A. Wallis Budge]] |year=1920 |publisher=John Murray |accessdate=10 June 2021 |archive-date=2021-07-21  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210721132433/https://www.um.es/cepoat/egipcio/wp-content/uploads/egyptianhierogly.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>

Although the concept of ''zoology'' as a single coherent field arose much later, the zoological sciences emerged from [[natural history]] reaching back to the [[Aristotle's biology|biological works of Aristotle]] and [[Galen]] in the ancient [[Greco-Roman world]]. In the fourth century BC, Aristotle looked at animals as living organisms, studying their structure, development and vital phenomena. He divided them into two groups: animals with blood, equivalent to our concept of [[vertebrate]]s, and animals without blood, [[invertebrate]]s. He spent two years on [[Lesbos]], observing and describing the animals and plants, considering the adaptations of different organisms and the function of their parts.<ref>{{cite book |last=Leroi |first=Armand Marie |title=The Lagoon: How Aristotle Invented Science |date=2015 |author-link=Armand Marie Leroi |title-link=Aristotle's Lagoon |publisher=Bloomsbury |isbn=978-1-4088-3622-4 |pages=135–136}}</ref> Four hundred years later, Roman physician Galen dissected animals to study their anatomy and the function of the different parts, because the dissection of human cadavers was prohibited at the time.<ref>{{cite book|author=Claudii Galeni Pergameni|title="That the best physician is also a philosopher" with a Modern Greek Translation
|editor=Odysseas Hatzopoulos|publisher=Odysseas Hatzopoulos & Company: Kaktos Editions|location=[[Athens]], [[Greece]]|year=1992}}</ref> This resulted in some of his conclusions being false, but for many centuries it was considered [[Heresy|heretical]] to challenge any of his views, so the study of anatomy stultified.<ref>{{cite book |title=Medecine's 10 Greatest Discoveries |last1=Friedman |first1=Meyer |last2=Friedland |first2=Gerald W. |year=1998 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=0-300-07598-7 |page=2 |url= }}</ref>
 
During the [[Post-classical history|post-classical era]], [[Medicine in the medieval Islamic world|Middle Eastern science and medicine]] was the most advanced in the world, integrating concepts from Ancient Greece, Rome, Mesopotamia and Persia as well as the ancient Indian tradition of [[Ayurveda]], while making numerous advances and innovations.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Mehmet |last=Bayrakdar |year=1986 |title=Al-Jahiz and the rise of biological evolution |journal=Ankara Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi |publisher=[[Ankara University]] |volume=27 |issue=1 |pages=307–315 |doi=10.1501/Ilhfak_0000000674 |doi-broken-date=1 November 2024 |doi-access=free }}</ref> In the 13th century, [[Albertus Magnus]] produced commentaries and paraphrases of all Aristotle's works; his books on topics like [[botany]], zoology, and minerals included information from ancient sources, but also the results of his own investigations. His general approach was surprisingly modern, and he wrote, "For it is [the task] of natural science not simply to accept what we are told but to inquire into the causes of natural things."<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/308059821ALBERTUSMAGNUSTheBookOfMinerals|title=Book of Minerals|last=Wyckoff|first=Dorothy|publisher=Clarendon Press|year=1967|location=Oxford|pages=Preface}}</ref> An early pioneer was [[Conrad Gessner]], whose monumental 4,500-page encyclopedia of animals, {{Lang|la|[[Historia animalium (Gessner book)|Historia animalium]]}}, was published in four volumes between 1551 and 1558.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Scott|first1=Michon|title=Conrad Gesner|url=https://www.strangescience.net/gesner.htm|website=Strange Science: The rocky road to modern paleontology and biology|access-date=27 September 2017|date=26 March 2017|archive-date=2021-06-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210616080201/https://www.strangescience.net/gesner.htm|url-status=live}}</ref>

In Europe, Galen's work on anatomy remained largely unsurpassed and unchallenged up until the 16th century.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Thinking about Life: The History and Philosophy of Biology and Other Sciences|url=https://archive.org/details/thinkingaboutlif00agut_532 |author1=Agutter, Paul S. |author2=Wheatley, Denys N.  |publisher=Springer |year=2008 |isbn=978-1-4020-8865-0 |page=[https://archive.org/details/thinkingaboutlif00agut_532/page/n56 43]}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Saint Albertus Magnus |title=On Animals: A Medieval Summa Zoologica |year=1999 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |isbn=0-8018-4823-7 }}</ref> During the [[Renaissance]] and early modern period, zoological thought was revolutionized in [[Europe]] by a renewed interest in [[empiricism]] and the discovery of many novel organisms. Prominent in this movement were [[Andreas Vesalius]] and [[William Harvey]], who used experimentation and careful observation in [[physiology]], and naturalists such as [[Carl Linnaeus]], [[Jean-Baptiste Lamarck]], and [[Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon|Buffon]] who began to [[Taxonomy (biology)|classify the diversity of life]] and the [[Fossil#Dating|fossil record]], as well as studying the development and behavior of organisms. [[Antonie van Leeuwenhoek]] did pioneering work in [[microscopy]] and revealed the previously unknown world of [[microorganism]]s, laying the groundwork for [[cell theory]].<ref>{{cite book |author=Magner, Lois N. |title=A History of the Life Sciences, Revised and Expanded |year=2002 |publisher=CRC Press |pages=133–144 |isbn=0-8247-0824-5 }}</ref> van Leeuwenhoek's observations were endorsed by [[Robert Hooke]]; all living organisms were composed of one or more cells and could not generate spontaneously. Cell theory provided a new perspective on the fundamental basis of life.<ref>{{cite book |author=Jan Sapp |title=Genesis: The Evolution of Biology |year=2003 |publisher=Oxford University Press |chapter=Chapter 7 |isbn=0-19-515619-6 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/genesisevolution00sapp }}</ref>

Having previously been the realm of gentlemen naturalists, over the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, zoology became an increasingly professional [[Branches of science|scientific discipline]]. Explorer-naturalists such as [[Alexander von Humboldt]] investigated the interaction between organisms and their environment, and the ways this relationship depends on geography, laying the foundations for [[biogeography]], [[ecology]] and [[ethology]]. Naturalists began to reject [[essentialism]] and consider the importance of [[extinction]] and the [[history of evolutionary thought|mutability of species]].<ref>{{cite book |author=William Coleman |title=Biology in the Nineteenth Century |year=1978 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |chapter=Chapter 2 |isbn=0-521-29293-X }}</ref>

These developments, as well as the results from [[embryology]] and [[paleontology]], were synthesized in the 1859 publication of [[Charles Darwin]]'s theory of [[evolution]] by [[natural selection]]; in this Darwin placed the theory of organic evolution on a new footing, by explaining the processes by which it can occur, and providing observational evidence that it had done so.<ref>{{cite book |title=Why Evolution is True |author=Coyne, Jerry A. |year=2009 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-923084-6 |page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780199230846/page/17 17] |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780199230846/page/17 }}</ref> [[Darwinism|Darwin's theory]] was rapidly accepted by the scientific community and soon became a central axiom of the rapidly developing science of biology. The basis for modern genetics began with the work of [[Gregor Mendel]] on peas in 1865, although the significance of his work was not realized at the time.<ref>{{cite book|last=Henig|first=Robin Marantz|title=The Monk in the Garden : The Lost and Found Genius of Gregor Mendel, the Father of Modern Genetics |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-395-97765-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/monkingardenlost00heni}}</ref>

Darwin gave a new direction to [[Morphology (biology)|morphology]] and [[physiology]], by uniting them in a common biological theory: the theory of organic evolution. The result was a reconstruction of the classification of animals upon a [[Genealogy|genealogical]] basis, fresh investigation of the development of animals, and early attempts to determine their genetic relationships. The end of the 19th century saw the fall of [[spontaneous generation]] and the rise of the [[germ theory of disease]], though the mechanism of [[Heredity|inheritance]] remained a mystery. In the early 20th century, the rediscovery of [[Gregor Mendel|Mendel's]] work led to the rapid development of [[genetics]], and by the 1930s the combination of [[population genetics]] and natural selection in the [[Modern synthesis (20th century)|modern synthesis]] created [[evolutionary biology]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Science and Creationism: a view from the National Academy of Sciences |url=https://archive.org/details/sciencecreationi0000unse/page/28 |format=php |access-date=September 24, 2009 |edition=Second |year=1999 |publisher=The National Academy of Sciences |location=Washington, DC |isbn=-0-309-06406-6 |page=[https://archive.org/details/sciencecreationi0000unse/page/28 28] |chapter=Appendix: Frequently Asked Questions |chapter-url=http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=6024&page=27#p200064869970027001 |ref=NAS }}</ref>

Research in cell biology is interconnected to other fields such as genetics, [[biochemistry]], [[medical microbiology]], [[immunology]], and [[cytochemistry]]. With the determination of the double helical structure of the [[DNA]] molecule by [[Francis Crick]] and [[James Watson]] in 1953,<ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=WATSON JD, CRICK FH |title=Molecular structure of nucleic acids; a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid |journal=Nature |volume=171 |issue=4356 |pages=737–8 |date=April 1953 |pmid=13054692 |doi=10.1038/171737a0 |bibcode=1953Natur.171..737W |url=}}</ref> the realm of [[molecular biology]] opened up, leading to advances in [[cell biology]], [[developmental biology]] and [[molecular genetics]]. The study of [[systematics]] was transformed as [[DNA sequencing]] elucidated the degrees of affinity between different organisms.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.biologydiscussion.com/animals-2/systematics-meaning-branches-and-its-application/32374|title=Systematics: Meaning, Branches and Its Application|date=27 May 2016|work=Biology Discussion|access-date=10 June 2021|archive-date=2017-04-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170413073150/http://www.biologydiscussion.com/animals-2/systematics-meaning-branches-and-its-application/32374|url-status=live}}</ref>