Launching its centenary celebrations, the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), India’s premier taxonomic research institute, is aspiring for an ambitious project of digitisation of its millions of specimens, besides identifying the gap areas in taxonomy.

Started in 1916 with four scientists and seven other employees, the ZSI, in the past 99 years, has identified 96,000 species in India, considered a mega-diversity country possessing seven-eight per cent species of the world.

Speaking to The Hindu, ZSI Director K. Venkataraman said on Saturday that one of the primary future initiatives was networking with taxonomist and taxonomical research institutes in the country and identifying the gaps in taxonomy.

Scientists at the ZSI pointed out that despite the identification of 96,000 species, only 10 per cent of the country’s biodiversity and 50 per cent of the ecosystem had been explored. They also faced the challenge of a large number of species in the wild becoming endangered and even facing the threats of local extinction.

Commenting on the rich repository of biological specimens in collection with the ZSI, Mr. Venkatraman said the ZSI was the largest repository of fauna in Asia. “Over four million zoological specimens, including 17,000 type specimens, are maintained in the national zoological collections of the ZSI. This will the first set to be digitised,” he said. This would be followed by preparation of a database of temporal and spatial distribution of specimens over 100 years of the ZSI, he added.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Kolkata / by Special Correspondent / Kolkata – February 15th, 2015