To some potential readers of this book the description of Biological System­ atics as an art may seem outdated and frankly wrong. Specialists are imbibed with their own groups and tend to establish a consensus of what constitutes a species or a genus, or whether it should be desirable to recognize sub­ species, cultivars etc.

One: Problems and Methods.- 1 Systems and classifications.- 2 Some steps in comparative biology.- 3 Biochemical and molecular systematics.- 4 The species.- 5 Resources and media.- Two: The State of the Art.- 6 The inventory of natural diversity.- 7 Towards the system.- 8 Interviews on the daily work of systematists: problems and trends.- 9 The unequal distribution of taxonomic diversity.- 10 Domesticated animals and cultivated plants.- Three: Epilogue.- 11 Some dangerous trends, and a hope for the future.- Appendices.- 1 Zoological checklists and catalogues.- 2 Möhn’s (1984) general classification of living organisms.- 3 ‘Provisional classification’ of the Protista, according to Corliss.- 4 Phyla and classes of the Protoctista (Corliss’ Protista) according to Margulis et al (1990).- 5 Möhn’s (1984) classification of animals.- 6 Nielsen’s (1985) classification of the Animalia.- 7 Ehlers’s (1985) system of Plathelminthes.- 8 Jamieson’s (1988) system of the Oligochaeta.- 9 Salvini-Plawen’s (1980) classification of the Phylum Mollusca.- 10 Haszprunar’s (1986) classification of gastropods.- 11 Weygoldt and Paulus’s (1979) system of the Chelicerata.- 12 Shultz’s (1990) system of the Chelicerata.- 13 Schram’s (1986) classification of the Crustacea.- 14 Starobogatov’s (1988) classification of the Crustacea.- 15 Hennig’s (1969) system of the Insecta.- 16 Hennig’s (1985) system of the Chordata.- 17 The major groups of Chordata according to Nelson (1969).- 18 Rosen et al.’s (1981) classification of gnathostome vertebrates.- 19 Carroll’s (1987) classification of vertebrates, including both.- extinct and living forms.- 20 Lauder and Liem’s (1983) classification of living bony fishes.- 21 Sibley and Ahlquist’s (1990) classification of birds.-22 Bremer’s (1985) cladistic classification of green plants.- 23 Dahlgren’s (1989a,b) classification of the flowering plants.- References.- Author index.- Taxonomic index.