Some issues in the classification of zoology

This paper identifies and discusses features of the classification of mammals that are relevant to the bibliographic classification of the subject. The tendency of zoological classifications to change; the differing sizes of groups of species; the use zoologists make of groupings other than taxa; and the links in zoology between classification and nomenclature, are identified as key themes the bibliographic classificationist needs to be aware of. The impact of cladistics, a novel classificatory method and philosophy adopted by zoologists in the last few decades, is identified as the defining feature of the current, rather turbulent, state of zoological classification. However because zoologists still employ some non-cladistic classifications, because cladistic classifications are in some ways unsuited to optimal information storage and retrieval, and because some of their consequences for zoological classification are as yet unknown, bibliographic classifications cannot be modelled entirely on them.