Subject Guides: Biology: Reference works and dictionaries

Subject specific

A Dictionary of Biology (6 ed.)
A Dictionary of Genetics (8 ed.)
Index to Organism Names (ION)
ION contains the organism names related data gathered from the scientific literature for Thomson Reuters' Zoological Record® database. Viruses, bacteria and plant names will be added from other Thomson Reuters databases such as BIOSIS Previews®.
The Tree of Life
The Tree of Life Web Project (ToL) is a collaborative effort of biologists and nature enthusiasts from around the world. On more than 10,000 World Wide Web pages, the project provides information about biodiversity, the characteristics of different groups of organisms, and their evolutionary history (phylogeny).

Botany encyclopedias

About Herbs, Botanicals & Other Products
Run by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Checklist of Ferns and Lycophytes of the World
By Michael Hassler and Bernd Schmitt in cooperation with Botanical Garden of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Dr. Duke's Phytochemical and Ethnobotanical Databases
Dr. Duke's Phytochemical and Ethnobotanical databases facilitate in-depth plant, chemical, bioactivity, and ethnobotany searches. Of interest to pharmaceutical, nutritional, and biomedical research, as well alternative therapies and herbal products.
Prelude Medicinal Plants Database
Database on the use of plants in different traditional veterinarian and human medicines in Africa. Royal Museum for Central Africa.
Swedish Utility and Cultivated Plants Database, SCUD
Tropicos - Missouri botanical garden
All of the nomenclatural, bibliographic, and specimen data accumulated in MBG’s electronic databases during the past 25 years are publicly available here.

Floras

There is a big collection of printed floras, placed at the Museum of Evolution, botany. In the library catalog they are recognized with a shelving code starting with: Uf.07----
The Collection is closed and for reading room use only but contact the Biology library if you need something from the collection.

Europe

Flora Europaea
Flora Iberica- Spain and Portugal
Flora von Deutschland- ein Bilder-Datenbank

Africa

Flora of Zambia

Asia

Flora of China

Australia

Flora of Australia Online

America

Fungi

US Fungus National Collection - Online resources for Fungi
Run by USDA (United States Department of Agriculture)

General

Encyclopaedia Britannica Academic Edition This link opens in a new window
One of the world's largest English-language encyclopaedias. Also contains Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.

EuroVoc
Multilingual Thesaurus of the European Union
IATE InterActive Terminology for Europe
Inter Active Terminology for Europe - for EU's 24 languages. Contains lots of specialised terms. Definitions are given for some words.
Merriam-Webster, Dictionary and Thesaurus
Merriam-Webster Visual Dictionary Online
Oxford Paperback Thesaurus (4 ed.)
300,000 synonyms and antonyms with thousands of usage examples from real English to show how synonyms are used in context.

Taxonomic & systematics

Index Nominum Genericorum (ING)
A compilation of generic names published for organisms covered by the ICN: International Code of Nomenclature for Algae, Fungi, and Plants.
ITIS, the Integrated Taxonomic Information System
Here you will find authoritative taxonomic information on plants, animals, fungi, and microbes of North America and the world.

Wildlife sounds and videos

The Macaulay Library
The Macaulay Library is the world's largest and oldest scientific archive of biodiversity audio and video recordings.

Zoology

AmphibiaWeb
Provides information on amphibian declines, natural history, conservation, and taxonomy
Avibase
An extensive database information system about all birds of the world, containing over 12 million records about 10,000 species and 22,000 subspecies of birds, including distribution information, taxonomy, synonyms in several languages and more.
Encyclopedia of Entomology (2008)
More than 450 distinguished entomologists from 40 countries is brought together to provide a worldwide overview of insects and their close relatives.
Fishbase
A wide range of information on all species currently known in the world: taxonomy, biology, trophic ecology, life history, and uses, as well as historical data reaching back to 250 years.
The New Encyclopedia of Birds (2007)