CINXE.COM
ADW: Search Guide
<!DOCTYPE html> <html xmlns:og="http://ogp.me/ns#" lang="en" xml:lang="en"> <head> <title>ADW: Search Guide</title> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> <link rel="canonical" href="https://animaldiversity.org/search_guide/" /> <script type="text/javascript" src="//code.jquery.com/jquery-3.6.0.min.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="//code.jquery.com/jquery-migrate-3.3.2.min.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/static/js/compat.js"></script> <link rel="shortcut icon" href="https://animaldiversity.org/favicon.ico" /> <link href="//fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Gentium+Book+Basic:400,400italic,700,700italic" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <link href="//fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=PT+Sans:400,700,400italic,700italic" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/static/bootstrap/css/bootstrap.css" /> <link rel="stylesheet" href="/static/css/pica.styles.css" /> <link rel="stylesheet" href="/static/css/pica.print.css" media="print" /> <!--[if lt IE 9]> <script src="http://html5shim.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/html5.js"></script> <![endif]--> <link rel="stylesheet" href="/static/css/pica.node.css" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/static/colorbox/colorbox.css" /> <script src="/static/js/jquery.media.js"></script> <script src="/static/js/pica.node.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/static/js/Hyphenator.js"></script> <link rel="stylesheet" href="/static/social-likes/social-likes_birman.css" /> <style> .social-likes { margin: 0; } .social-likes__widget { margin: 0; } </style> <!--[if lt IE 9]> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/static/css/ie.css" /> <![endif]--> <!--[if gt IE 8]> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/static/css/ie9.css" /> <![endif]--> </head> <body> <div id="outerwrap"> <div id="header" aria-role="header"> <h1> <a id="homelink" href="/">Animal Diversity Web</a> </h1> <div class="umlinks"> <div class="relative"> <a href="https://lsa.umich.edu/ummz/" id="ummzlink">University of Michigan Museum of Zoology</a> <a href="https://www.umich.edu/" id="umlink">University of Michigan</a> </div> </div> </div> <div id="wrap" class="gradient"> <div class="container-fluid"> <div class="row-fluid"> <div class="span2 sidebar left"> <ul class="nav nav-tabs nav-stacked" id="sitemap"> <li> <a href="/">Home</a> </li> <li> <a href="/about/">About Us</a> </li> <li> <a href="/animal_names/">About Animal Names</a> </li> <li> <a href="/teach/">Educational Resources</a> </li> <li> <a href="/collections/">Special Collections</a> </li> <li> <a href="/glossary/">Glossary</a> </li> <li> <a href="/accounts/Animalia/">Browse Animalia</a> </li> </ul> </div> <div class="span7_5 blahblahblah main" aria-role="main"> <h2>Search Guide</h2> <div class="social-likes" data-counters="no"> <div class="facebook" title="Share link on Facebook">Facebook</div> <div class="twitter" title="Share link on Twitter">Twitter</div> </div> <div class="inner-wrap"> <section> <p> <strong>The Animal Diversity Web is designed to facilitate several ways of searching for animal information.</strong> </p> <h3> <a class="header" name="searching-taxonomically-by-animal-group" id="searching-taxonomically-by-animal-group">Searching taxonomically (by animal group)</a> </h3> <p>If you are looking for information on a particular animal or group of animals then searches using the appropriate scientific name will work best. For example, if you're interested in information on honeybees, then search for <a class="taxon_link_sp" href="/accounts/Apis_mellifera/">Apis mellifera</a>. You can travel through the taxonomic hierarchy by clicking on the "classification" tab on each account. For example, if you wanted to discover whether ADW has any information on animals related to honeybees, you can select the next higher level of the taxonomic hierarchy (such as Apidae, the family of long-tongued bees).</p> <p>Please remember that our database of animals is far from complete, this includes information at the species level and information for higher taxa, such as families and orders. You may travel through the taxonomic hierarchy of a lesser-known group of invertebrates and find that we have no information on them. Our sincere apologies! Our site is a work in progress.</p> <p>If you search using a scientific name and you get no results, then we either have no information on those animals in our database or the scientific name you are using is inaccurate. Please double check your spelling and consider whether you are using an out-of-date name. Scientific names do change and our <a class="wiki" href="/animal_names/authorities/">taxonomic database</a> is regularly updated.</p> <p>Searches on common names will work if the common name is part of our <a class="wiki" href="/animal_names/authorities/">taxonomic database</a>.</p> <h3> <a class="header" name="searching-by-animal-characteristics" id="searching-by-animal-characteristics">Searching by animal characteristics</a> </h3> <p>Each of our taxon accounts (species accounts and accounts for higher taxa, such as families) is accompanied by a set of keywords. These keywords enable users to search for animals with certain features. For example, you could search for all animals that live in Antarctica or that eat worms. With our site search you can even find which animals live in Antarctica <em>and</em> eat worms.</p> <p>You can find a list of our searchable keywords here (coming soon).</p> <p>Please remember, though, that the search results will only reflect the information we currently have in ADW. We are constantly adding new species to our database but cannot hope to comprehensively cover all of animal diversity.</p> </section> </div> </div> <div class="span2_5 right sidebar"> <div class="well" id="pocket-guide-link"> <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/adw-pocket-guide/id916179421?mt=8" target="_blank"><i class="icon-download icon-white" style="vertical-align: bottom"></i> ADW Pocket Guides on the iOS App Store! </a> <p>The Animal Diversity Web team is excited to announce ADW Pocket Guides!</p> <p> <a href="/news/5009059054038197651/">Read more...</a> </p> </div> <h2 class="offscreen">Search</h2> <div id="site-search"> <form action="/search" method="GET"> <label for="q" class="offscreen">Enter search text</label> <input value="" id="q" name="q" class="span12" size="15" type="text" placeholder="Search ADW" /> <button class="btn"> <i class="icon-zoom-in"></i> <span class="offscreen">Search</span> </button> <p style="max-height: 35px"> <label for="feature-list" class="offscreen">Search in feature</label> <select size="1" name="feature" class="feature-list input-medium" id="feature-list"> <option value="INFORMATION">Taxon Information</option> <option value="COLLECTIONS">Contributor Galleries</option> <option value="TOPICS">Topics</option> <option value="CLASSIFICATION">Classification</option> </select> </p> </form> <ul class="unstyled"> <li> <a href="https://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/quaardvark/">Explore Data @ Quaardvark</a> </li> <li> <a href="/search_guide/">Search Guide</a> </li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div id="footer" aria-role="contentinfo"> <div class="inner-footer"> <div class="page-citation"> <p class="content">To cite this page: Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2025. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed at https://animaldiversity.org.</p> </div> <div class="disclaimer"> <p class="content"><strong>Disclaimer:</strong> The Animal Diversity Web is an educational resource <strong>written largely by and for college students</strong>. ADW doesn't cover all species in the world, nor does it include all the latest scientific information about organisms we describe. Though we edit our accounts for accuracy, we cannot guarantee all information in those accounts. While ADW staff and contributors provide references to books and websites that we believe are reputable, we cannot necessarily endorse the contents of references beyond our control. </p> </div> <div class="footer-links"> <ul class="unstyled"> <li><a href="https://www.umich.edu/">U-M Gateway</a> | <a href="https://lsa.umich.edu/ummz/">U-M Museum of Zoology</a></li> <li> <a href="https://lsa.umich.edu/eeb/">U-M Ecology and Evolutionary Biology</a> </li> <li> 漏 2020 Regents of the University of Michigan </li> <li><a href="/feedback/error_form/">Report Error</a> / <a href="/feedback/comment_form/">Comment</a></li> </ul> </div> <div class="thanks-links"> <p>This material is based upon work supported by the <a href="https://nsf.gov">National Science Foundation</a> Grants DRL 0089283, DRL 0628151, DUE 0633095, DRL 0918590, and DUE 1122742. Additional support has come from the Marisla Foundation, UM College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, Museum of Zoology, and Information and Technology Services. </p> <p> The ADW Team gratefully acknowledges their support. </p> </div> </div> </div> <script></script> </div> <script src="/static/js/jquery.colorbox.js"></script> <script src="/static/js/pica.popup.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); </script> <script type="text/javascript"> try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-7143967-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {} </script> <script type="text/javascript"> (function(c,l,a,r,i,t,y){ c[a]=c[a]||function(){(c[a].q=c[a].q||[]).push(arguments)}; t=l.createElement(r);t.async=1;t.src="https://www.clarity.ms/tag/"+i; y=l.getElementsByTagName(r)[0];y.parentNode.insertBefore(t,y); })(window, document, "clarity", "script", "6f4vquqfce"); </script> <script async="async" src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=G-0ZHSR6DBVK"></script> <script> window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);} gtag('js', new Date()); gtag('config', 'G-0ZHSR6DBVK'); </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/static/bootstrap/js/bootstrap.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/static/social-likes/social-likes.min.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/static/js/links.js"></script> </body> </html>