Taxonomy, the scientific discipline concerned with the naming and classification of organisms, is quickly becoming a lost art. There is simply too much work and too few new taxonomists. It is ironic that a discipline that should have been super-charged by the Internet and modern molecular techniques has somehow instead begun to stagnate.

Doom-saying aside, in recent years a number of extremely high-quality taxonomic databases have appeared on the Internet. All of these are excellent for casually learning about the evolutionary histories of organisms you know and love (you want to do that, right?). For example, did you know that loons and penguins are very closely related? Thanks to the Internets, now you do!

Online Taxonomy Resources

Tree of Life Web Project

Wikispecies

The Encyclopedia of Life

Animal Diversity Web

Species 2000