Finding Animals Using ISIS Species Holdings

Welcome to ISIS Species Holdings. This tool will help you find out how many animals of each type are currently living in ISIS member institutions.

To use this tool:
  1. On the left side of the screen, click to expand the category of the animal for which you would like to search.

    Mammalia – mammals (e.g. elephants, tigers, dolphins)
    Aves – birds (e.g. doves, owls, hawks)
    Reptilia – reptiles (e.g. snakes, lizards, turtles)
    Amphibia – amphibians (e.g. frogs, salamanders, newts)
    Other – everything else (e.g. fish, sealife, insects)

  2. After the selected category expands, click to expand the appropriate subcategory to search by “common” or “taxonomic”* name.
    (Note: if you are not able to find the animal for which you are searching by common name, use this tool: http://www.itis.gov to find the taxonomic name for that animal.)

  3. Choose the letter with which the name of the animal for which you are searching begins (e.g. choose “T” for “tiger).

  4. Now you can select your animal from the alphabetical list displayed in the right column. (Both the common name and the scientific name for each animal are displayed.)

  5. Clicking on the name of the animal will display tables, which are divided by different types of that animal. For example, clicking on “tiger” will display separate tables for each kind of tiger.

  6. In these tables, clicking on the blue text will show you the name of the institution that cares for those animals.
Note: To obtain the full count of a certain animal in captivity, you must add the totals from each table.

* Taxonomic name – scientific classification of animal species by animal type. (e.g. “homo sapiens” used to classify humans.)