Zoology, is the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology,
evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct. The term is derived from Ancient Greek word zoon = animal +logos= knowledge and being zoology.
Although the study of animal life is ancient, its scientific incarnation is relatively modern. This mirrors the transition from natural history to biology at the start of the nineteenth century. Since Hunter and Cuvier, comparative anatomical study has been associated with morphography shapins the modern areas of zoological investigation: anatomy, physiology, histology, embryology, teratology and ethology. Modern zoology first arose in German and British universities. In Britain, Thomas Henry Huxley was a prominent figure. His ideas were centered on the morphology of animals. Many consider him the greatest comparative anatomist of the latter half of the nineteenth century. Similar to Hunter,
his courses were composed of lectures and laboratory practical classes
in contrast to the previous format of lectures only. This system became
widely spread.
According to Darwin, ancient history of Zoology
Charles Darwin |
The history of zoology traces the study of the animal kingdom from ancient to modern times. Although the concept of zoology as a single coherent field arose much later, the zoological sciences emerged from natural history reaching back to the works of Aristotle and Galen in the ancient Greco-Roman world. This ancient work was further developed in the Middle Ages by Muslim physicians and scholars such as Albertus Magnus. 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 Vesalius and William Harvey, who used experimentation and careful observation in physiology, and naturalists such as Carl Linnaeus and Buffon who began to classify the diversity of life and the fossil record, as well as the development and behavior of organisms. Microscopy revealed the previously unknown world of microorganisms, laying the groundwork for cell theory. The growing importance of natural theology, partly a response to the rise of mechanical philosophy, encouraged the growth of natural history (although it entrenched the argument from design).
Over the 18th and 19th centuries, zoology became an increasingly professional 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 bio geography, ecology and ethology. Naturalists began to reject essentialism and consider the importance of extinction and the mutability of species. Cell theory provided a new perspective on the fundamental basis of life.
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