In honor of the end-of-the-old-year/start-of-the-new-year gift-giving season (depending on the culture), I thought I would do a post on some of the nomenclatural, taxonomic, and literature resources available online--in particular, ones that are non-subscription and have free downloadable or free readable content.
I have concentrated mainly on websites run by institutions and organizations or groups. There are also websites posted and maintained by individuals that also have useful content. I have only included a few here.Â
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Also, a reminder that people help sponsor some of these services to make content available to all for free, such as:
Internet Archive
Biodiversity Heritage Library
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Donate
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ONLINE NOMENCLATURAL AND TAXONOMIC RESOURCES
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ICZN Code
https://www.iczn.org/the-code/the-international-code-of-zoological-nomenclature/the-code-online/
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From 1985 edition:
Appendix B: Transliteration and Latinisation of Greek words
Appendix C: Latinisation of geographical and proper names
Appendix D: Recommendations on the formation of names.
https://www.iczn.org/assets/92273ee2d1/Formation_of_names.pdf
Note that these recommendations on composing names are a bit technical and assume some familiarity with Greek and Latin grammar. In practice, Neo-Latin as it now exists is pretty tolerant of non-standard ways of composing names.
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NEO-LATIN CAUTIONARY NOTE:
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These books and online tools for nomenclature are based almost entirely on Ancient Greek and on classical and later forms of Latin (in some cases, up through the Middle Ages). They do NOT fully reflect the other meanings and forms for Latin words found in the scientific Neo-Latin that developed from the Renaissance onward (16th century >). As a result, a fair number of older names in zoology and in paleontology are now misunderstood or misread when strictly classical meanings are used. I'm planning some future posts to fill in the "lost lore" of older Neo-Latin names.
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BOOKS (as downloadable pdfs)
Wilbur Brown (1954) Composition of Scientific Words. George W. King Printing Co., Baltimore, Md. pp. 882
https://archive.org/stream/compositionofsci00brow#page/n0
This comprehensive work is a very handy resource for composing new names going from English to Greek and Latin. Greek words are transliterated into Latin letters. The pdf version has full text search.
The book is less useful for deciphering the etymologies or interpreting the intended meanings of older zoological names. For example, the dinosaur name Yaleosaurus ("Yale lizard") was NOT derived from Greek hyaleos "glass" as Brown suggests!
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There are other online guides and free books for scientific terms and word roots from Greek and Latin, but they are much more limited than Brown's book.
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ENGLISH TO ANCIENT GREEK
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Charles Duke Yonge (1890) An English-Greek Lexicon. Harper Brothers, New York. pp. 663
https://books.google.com/books?id=2GI0AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Probably the best source for finding Ancient Greek equivalents (written in Greek) for English words. Multiple earlier editions are available online as well but this 1890 version is the most comprehensive and accurate (currently only available from Google Books that I can find). It can be downloaded as a pdf.
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ENGLISH TO LATIN
William Smith & Theophilus Dwight Hall (1871) A Copious and Critical English-Latin Dictionary.
Harper and Brothers 964 pp.
Can be downloaded as a pdf from:
https://archive.org/details/copiouscriticale00smit/page/n7
https://books.google.com/books?id=jeQIAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
This 19th century work is generally considered the best resource of translating English to Latin based on classical usage.
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LATIN NAMES FOR PLACES (MAINLY IN EUROPE)
Morganucodon, Clevosaurus, etc.
Orbis Latinus
https://www.latinitium.com/blog/latin-place-names
Online older edition:
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/ets/Graesse/contents.html
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INTERACTIVE ONLINE GREEK AND LATIN TOOLS
Perseus Greek and Latin Dictionary Headword Search
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/resolveform?redirect=true
Dropdown boxes at upper right allow queries for Greek and for Latin with exact words, or strings of letters at the beginning, internally, or at the end of words.
Queries for Greek words can done in Greek with accents or no accents, and also, more conveniently, in Latin letter form according to a chart. The Greek search tool works with basic Roman letter equivalents, with or without symbols for accent marks and rough breathing. So to find Greek anax "lord, king, ruler" the Latin letter query can be "anac" according to the chart. The accent marks are optional.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/resolveform?type=exact&lookup=anac&lang=greek
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Logeion
Another online search tool for Greek and Latin, but requires Greek letters, usually with correct accents (some Greek words work without accents, although with an error message).
Includes Late Latin and Medieval Latin, and non-English Greek and Latin lexicons as well (French, Dutch).
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Wiktionary
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Main_Page
Can be queried for Latin and Greek words (as well as other languages). However, Greek words need to be in Greek spelling, including accents. It includes the declensions of nouns and adjectives and conjugations of verbs.
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ANCIENT GREEK TO MODERN GREEK
http://greek_greek.enacademic.com/
The most comprehensive online resource for Greek words, including ancient Greek all the way to up to modern Greek terms. However, it requires Greek letters and gives definitions in modern Greek (which Google Chrome, etc., can translate to some degree).
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LATIN INTERACTIVE TOOL
Allows queries from Latin to English or from English to Latin
https://www.lexilogos.com/english/latin_dictionary.htm
There is a comprehensive set of links to online Latin dictionaries and lexicons (to French, German, etc.), as well as to other resources.
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TAXONOMIC AND NOMENCLATURAL DATABASES
(In my experience, some these websites have intermittent functionality issues--sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.)
Preoccupied names remain a headache for naming new taxa. Currently, a Google search can usually find if a name has been used before, but it's also a good idea to check these other resources.
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For a list of some major online resources for zoology and taxonomy, see:
https://unl.libguides.com/c.php?g=51779&p=3148685
Most of these sites are not paleontology-related, however.
More detail on a few of these that do have vertebrate paleontology content....
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Nomenclator Zoologicus
http://ubio.org/NomenclatorZoologicus/
You can use this link for a new query using the box at the top:
http://ubio.org/NZ/search.php?search=
The current online Nomenclator Zoologicus site lists genus and subgenus names with authors, dates, classification, and publication information. It can be filtered to bring up all the names published by a particular author (all generic names by Owen, Cope, Marsh, etc.) or to find names with similar strings of letters (all names containing "saurus" or "suchus" for example).
The results can be copied into an Excel sheet and edited as needed.
However, the content is limited to genus and subgenus names and has not been updated comprehensively in some time. It is also missing a few older names (such as Parasaurus von Meyer 1857).
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INDEX TO ORGANISM NAMES (ION)
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The most comprehensive free taxonomic listing available online that I am aware of. The content includes taxa published in the Zoological Record (a paywalled subscription resource) and currently includes new taxa published through 2018. It includes both generic and specific names.
Cautionary Notes:
Queries cannot be filtered by author or year, and often bring up multiple entries for a single taxon name.
Classification tree system (on left-hand side) is dated and incomplete, and expanded classifications may not capture all relevant taxa that are in the database. For example, the obsolete group Cotylosauria under Anapsida includes Parareptilia and Captorhinidae, but the groups Cetacea and Edentata do provide a useful list of species named up through 2018.
The database also includes taxa named by some nonacademic "outsider" authors such as self-published Australian "herpetologist" Raymond Hoser, widely labeled a "taxonomic vandal" by other researchers. (There is a current effort to avoid citing Hoser's works and names in formal scientific papers to avoid legitimizing his proposed taxa and names.) However, it might be a good policy to check to avoid inadvertently using any of Hoser's names for a new taxon and causing "preoccupied" status issues.
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Paleobiology Database
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Fossilworks gateway to Paleobiology Database
(This link is easier to query to find particular taxa.)
This very useful database for paleontology is a major work in progress and is currently incomplete, with many older and recent taxa not yet included.
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Taxonomicon
This website provides a classification for taxa at a generic level (which not everybody may agree with...):
http://taxonomicon.taxonomy.nl/
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Biological Names
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New Papers Listings
I try to post new papers fairly comprehensively (both paywalled and free) on the Dinosaur Mailing List--but I focus mainly on Mesozoic and Paleozoic tetrapods (and sometimes Cenozoic taxa).
The Dinosaur Mailing List archive includes the new paper notifications (although font issues with diacriticals and random characters are a problem in the current Archive display, still based on plain text)
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I also have been sending regular posts (weekly or biweekly) to the VertPaleo list with a selection of recent papers focused more broadly on vertebrate paleontology and evolution that have free pdfs (open access or sometimes temporarily free). However, I don't usually include paywalled content (unless it's a particularly important item).
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As a rule, I post papers when they first appear online (including in advance or in preprint form), but I do not post an update when the paper is formally published (with official issue and page numbers) unless the url, the text, the title, or other particulars have been changed (i.e., it's temporarily free, etc.).
I also try to check more "obscure" journals from outside the US and Western Europe.
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For more comprehensive vertpaleo literature updates, here are some additional resources.
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PubMed
This free resource can be queried by name or by topic and is updated on a nearly daily basis.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/
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HOWEVER, the selection is VERY limited and a larger number of journals and papers are NOT included or don't show up with general queries.
Most notably, recent papers in publications such as the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, Historical Biology, etc., don't show up for some reason. Some earlier articles in JVP do. Weird...
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Wikipedia Year in Paleontology Lists
For better or for worse, Wikipedia has become the "top" go-to source of information--it's typically the first item in a Google search and now in Amazon apps. The byword with Wikipedia might be "peruse but verify"--it can be a useful starting point when the sources cited can be checked independently.
(I confess I've fixed some errors or added content concerning etymologies and historical details in a few Wikipedia articles for zoology and paleontology where the primary sources are openly available online and can be cited and (where possible) linked to. MANY more Wikipedia articles need similar fixing, however.)
One nice feature in Wikipedia are the links to other language versions of Wikipedia articles. This can be handy for finding Chinese and Russian forms of taxa names in addition to the scientific Latin spelling.
2019 in Paleontology.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_in_paleontology
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This Wikipedia article series can be a very useful resource for monitoring new research and new taxa, and the people who update these lists (usually on a daily basis) perform a valuable service. Not every international publication is covered, but the selection is still quite comprehensive (MUCH better than PubMed!). New additions show up under the "View History" tab at the top of the page. There are sublists linked to the main page (2019 in Archosaur Paleontology, 2019 in Mammal Paleontology, etc.) that cover particular groups with high volumes of new literature. The literature citation entries are also updated when a paper is published in final form (which I typically don't do for the DML or VertPaleo lists if the link remains the same). They're not perfect, but to my knowledge these Wikipedia pages are currently the best sources available for keeping track of new publications in paleontology.
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Google Scholar
This resource is useful but very far from comprehensive, and is missing many international publications. It also includes dissertations, self-published works, and other informal sources. For example, it includes self-published material (Australian Journal of Herpetology) by Raymond Hoser, which is avoided by nearly all professional researchers, and other "fringe" content. Some caution is needed.
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LITERATURE RESOURCES
The vast expansion of older literature resources through the World Wide Web has been a huge help in researching any number of topics, including paleontology. Books and other publication that previously were only accessible in special collections at museums or universities can be read online or downloaded. However, finding some of these items online can still be a challenge. There are also copyright issues that mean that some publications dating from the late 1920s onward are not yet available in full text form.
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Google Search
Currently, the best tool for finding if a scientific or technical article or publication is available online is to do a Google query. Other search engines (Bing, etc.) typically don't return comprehensive results (being more focused on commerce than scientific research).
Google queries generally work in multiple languages with different writing systems or alphabets (Chinese, Russian, Greek, etc.), which would need to be copied from some source when using a regular English language keyboard.
All that said, it still can take some effort to track items down. I've found that queries often need to be done in multiple ways, sometimes using quotes (" ") to target keywords.
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Google Books
This is a hugely valuable resource for any kind of research, with a vast amount of historical book and journal material, as well as previews of new books.
There are also local versions for different languages, including German, French, Russian, etc.
In addition, some journals have now made published volumes available and downloadable through Google Books rather than through a home webpage. (New Mexico Museum of Nature and Science Bulletin, etc.)
That said, the scanning quality on some older works is not always the best, with smeared page images, partial pages, missing pages, foldout pages not included, or other sloppy copying.
Some of the scanned works previously included in Google Books are now only available through Hathi Trust or other sources because of copyright, ownership, or proprietary reasons.
Publications with multiple volumes under a main title (old encyclopedias, journals, etc.) are sometimes hard to find as individual volumes with the search tool in Google Books.
Older fonts are a problem and can cause misread characters such as ct, ae, oe ligatures, and f for a final s, etc. So if you query "fossil" in 17th and 18th century texts, you need to use "foffil" and so on.
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Internet Archive
This site aggregates books, articles, photos, audio, video, etc., that are freely available on the web.
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Bioheritage Library
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/122696#/summary
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This website is focused mainly on literature for biology. The copying images are often better than in Google Books, with foldout pages included. Also, pages can be downloaded in limited groups such as an individual article rather than download as an entire volume (the only option in Google Books). The pdfs are generally searchable as well.
Some journals are now only available through the Bioheritage site rather than on an institutional website, such as "Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County: Contributions in Science," etc.
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JSTOR
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This site includes a wide range of journals and books. Older material is often free to view and download. More recent stuff is usually paywalled. The image quality is clear. A great place to check.
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Hathi Trust (restrictions on access, mainly for US)
This source has some material previously available through Google Books but now restricted for copyright issues, etc. The focus is primarily on biological publications and some other scientific areas.
Individual pages can be downloaded for free as pdfs, but downloading entire volumes or works requires an institutional subscription.
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Gallica French National Library
https://gallica.bnf.fr/accueil/en/content/accueil-en?mode=desktop
Mainly devoted to material in French, but has some publications and resources not available elsewhere.
There are different downloading options and an English and French interface.
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German Digital Library
https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/
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This site aggregates online digital material available from different library and institution websites in Germany. However, the search on the webpage only works well for authors or publication titles and not keywords or taxa names in my experience.
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e-rara
Swiss libraries rare books
This site has some older publications in digital form that are not available anywhere else, notably some oversize volumes of Hermann von Meyer's Zur Fauna der Vorwelt as pdfs.
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American Museum of Natural History Library Digital Repository
Publications by the museum available for free downloads, including Novitates, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, etc.
http://digitallibrary.amnh.org/
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Image database
https://lbry-web-007.amnh.org/digital/index.php
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OTHER RESOURCES
Russian Geological and Paleontological Literature
Geokniga
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This site posts downloadable versions of Russian literature for geology and paleontology, either in DjVu or pdf format. It requires using Russian spellings in Cyrillic letters.
To find publications by particular authors, use:
http://www.geokniga.org/authors
So to find publications by Efremov, paste in ÐÑÑÐÐÐÐ in Russian.
http://www.geokniga.org/search/node/%D0%95%D1%84%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BC%D0%BE%D0%B2
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Russian Doc Player
This is another resource for finding free digital versions of articles and publications in Russian, and can be queried by Latin names (Mammuthus, Elasmotherium, Tarbosaurus, Scutosaurus, Benthosuchus, etc.), as well as Russian titles and authors. In additional to technical publications, it also has magazine articles.
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Chinese papers:
KMS Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology
Can be searched by author, name, publication, in English and in Chinese. The papers can be downloaded in pdf format if available. The main focus is vertebrate paleontology and older papers are being regularly added to the collection.
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Geosciences E-Journals
http://www.journals4free.com/?fq=class:ear
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Journals with open access articles in most (but not all) cases. Some paleontology content. Multiple pages to click through.
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Individual researcher webpages with free pdf links
Michael Benton publications
https://benton.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/publications/
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Xing Lida publications
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Jerry Harris' Vertebrate Paleontology Journal Links
http://cactus.dixie.edu/jharris/journal_links.html
This extremely useful webpage has links to a wide range of journals (paywalled and open access--I check the site all the time!). However, some journals are not included and some links need updating. Springer recently changed all the urls for its journals to a secure https versions and the currently posted links no longer work:
For example, PalZ is now:
https://link.springer.com/journal/volumesAndIssues/12542
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Palaeobiodiversity and Palaeoenvironments is now:
https://link.springer.com/journal/volumesAndIssues/12549
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The PaleoXriv includes free preprint versions of papers that been published elsewhere or are still unpublished.
https://paleorxiv.org/discover
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The Polyglot Paleontologist
This site provides free downloads of translations into English of papers originally published in other languages (Spanish, Chinese, Russian, etc.).
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There are many additional resources online not listed here, but I have found the ones listed above to be some of the most useful. Additional suggestions are welcome, including resources I may not be currently aware of.