NBII - National Biological Information Infrastructure


Text-Only Portal

Geographic Perspectives - Pacific Basin

  • back to: Pacific Basin



  • Taxonomy: Classifying Organisms in the Pacific Basin


    Taxonomic Helper Image
    Taxonomic Helper Image. Image: NBII (Public Domain)

    Taxonomy is the branch of science that focuses on the classification of living things. At the heart of this endeavor is nomenclature; that is, the scientific names that are applied to groups of living things. A Swedish naturalist named Carl Linnaeus devised a hierarchical system for assigning latinized names to organisms. More information!

    Bishop Museum / PBIN (External) Taxonomic Service - Search the museum's taxonomic authority database to retrieve species level information, including access to the 4 million specimens from the Hawaii Biological Survey collections for plants, mammals, fish, insects, and snails.


    Other Taxonomic Databases:

    (External) ITIS - The Integrated Taxonomic Information System.

    (External) GRIN - The Germplasm Resources Information Network.

    (External) IPINI - The International Plant Names Index.

    (External) Flora of the Hawaiian Islands - The online system hosted by the Smithsonian.



    The NBII Program is administered by the Biological Informatics Office of the U.S. Geological Survey
    About NBII | Accessibility Statement | NBII Disclaimer, Attribution & Privacy Statement | FOIA
    (External)

    Science.gov Logo        (External)

    USGS Logo        (External)

    USAgov Logo

    Change Text Only Settings

    Graphic version of this page