A section of the Indian Museum that grew into India's apex animal taxonomy body

Background

The Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), which works under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, describes itself as the premier taxonomic research organization in India. It was established on 1 July 1916 to promote surveys, exploration and research leading to advancement of knowledge of the animal life of India. ZSI had its genesis as the Zoological Section of the Indian Museum at Calcutta in 1875. Since its inception it has documented the diversity and distribution of the fauna of India, and has published information on all animal taxa, from Protozoa to Mammalia.

Its publication series carry that work. The Records of the Indian Museum, whose first issue was published in 1907, served as a vehicle for zoological research articles even before ZSI existed; after 1962 the journal was renamed the Records of the Zoological Survey of India, and it is a quarterly in-house journal now. The Memoirs series publishes work on the systematics, phylogeny and biogeography of a group of animals, or of groups of animals occurring in an ecologically defined area, and any other work of a monographic nature; it is an occasional publication, brought out depending upon the availability of material. Occasional Papers carry findings on particular topics and animal groups, district faunas, checklists and other lengthy taxonomic research papers that cannot be accommodated in the Records of the Zoological Survey of India. 91 volumes of 'Fauna of British India' on different groups were published before independence; that programme was reoriented in 1975 as 'Fauna of India', and since then 52 volumes have been published.

ZSI has also digitised all its published documents — more than 200,000 pages of printed material — as a text-searchable archive. Text searches can be made across all publications or restricted by the user to any particular publication, year, author, taxon, etc.