Introduction

Abstract

When zoology involved little more than a knowledge of the different kinds of animals, students were content to spend much of their time studying the anatomy, relationships and classification of the various groups. But in the last few decades things have changed. We now know much more of the biochemistry and physiology of the cell and the genetics of populations. Ecology has come very much to the fore with overtones of conservation and environment, and animal behaviour has become the new science of ethology. Now that there are so many new and exciting things to learn, students are no longer prepared to devote long hours acquiring the detailed knowledge of animal form and classification which was once their delight. But this is the language of the subject and is perhaps of greater importance today than it ever was in the past. In ecology, for example, surveys and projects abound from sixth form work at school to postgraduate theses. These depend on the identification of the different animals that are found together in a pond, or forest litter or whatever habitat is being studied.