ZOOLOGY

                         

                                          Zoology

.Zoology (/zuˈɒlədʒi, zoʊ-/) or animal biology is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct, and how they interact with their ecosystems. 

.The term is derived from Ancient Greek ζῷον, zōion, i.e. "animal" and λόγος, logos, i.e. "knowledge, study".

.History of Zoology:-

Ancient history to 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 biological 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, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, and Buffon who began to classify the diversity of lifeand 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, 19th, and 20th 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 biogeography, 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.^[6][7]

. Post-Darwin

These developments, as well as the results from embryology and paleontology, were synthesized in Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. 

In 1859, Darwin placed the theory of organic evolution on a new footing, by his discovery of a process by which organic evolution can occur, and provided observational evidence that it had done so.

Darwin gave a new direction to 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 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 inheritance remained a mystery. In the early 20th century, the rediscovery of 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 created evolutionary biology.

.Branches of 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 19th century. Since Hunter and Cuvier, comparative anatomical study has been associated with morphography, shaping 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 19th century. Similar to Hunter, his courses were composed of lectures and laboratory practical classes in contrast to the previous format of lectures only.

Gradually zoology expanded beyond Huxley's comparative anatomy to include the following sub-disciplines:

• Zoography, also known as descriptive zoology, is the applied science of describing animals and their habitats
• Comparative anatomy studies the structure of animals
• Animal physiology
• Behavioral ecology
• Ethology studies animal behavior
• Invertebrate zoology
• Vertebrate zoology
• Soil zoology
• The various taxonomically oriented disciplines such as mammalogy, biological anthropology, herpetology, ornithology, and entomology identify and classify species and study the structures and mechanisms specific to those groups.

Related fields:

• Evolutionary biology: Development of both animals and plants is considered in the articles on evolution, population genetics, heredity, variation, Mendelism, and reproduction.
• Molecular biology studies the common genetic and developmental mechanisms of animals and plants
• Palaeontology
• Systematics, cladistics, phylogenetics, phylogeography, biogeography, and taxonomy classify and group species via common descent and regional associations.

   (Source-Wikipedia)