Taxonomy, Nomenclature and Speciation


It is likely only in the last few 10's of thousand years that man began to question the relationships between himself and nature. It is only with extensive world travel particularly spurred onward by seafaring nations during the last two millennia returning home with weird and wonderfully different creatures that we seriously began to collect the different living and ‘dead’ plants and animals. About 200 years ago the mounting collections of artifacts became recognized as national treasures and proof of the new lands conquered and explored.

Boxes, jars, rooms and buildings of exotic treasures needed to be organized. Organization began with labeling, lists, indexes and these eventually demanded an overview of how and why one plant or animal belonged in one file or the other. Certainly the boxes and individual creatures were bunched by Countries, or continents or islands. It was logical to put ‘cats’ together with other ‘cat-like’ creatures. Palm trees, while wildly different from different areas of the world, were clearly “palm trees” Some had glorious dates, others didn’t but they were still palm-like. Relationships and hierarchies just naturally grew. Jars, boxes and stuffed animals or dried plants just logically ended up in association with or next to other similar specimens.

On October 27, 2005 Hancock House launched a new WEB option - Our Forums.

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This option was prompted by our WEB master, Richard Pitt. He suggested that many of our book readers or WEB readers might like to comment on topics discussed in our many informational books, and particularly those of some controversy.