Nine of the world's 29 orders of mammals are found in the state of Washington, including bats, primates, rodents, marine mammals, and carnivores, among other groups. For a plethora of information on mammals in Washington state and beyond, check out this Webpage from the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture (University of Washington-Seattle). In the Mammals of Washington section of the...

The Animal Information Database is an educational Web site from SeaWorld/Busch Gardens. The site contains a wide variety of information about many animals including fun facts, biological classification, habitat, and news about specific animals at the Sea World/Busch Gardens parks. A fun part of the site is the Animal Sounds Library where visitors can listen to the interesting sounds made by a...

The University of California Museum of Paleontology's Web site includes this section on the phylogenetic relationships that connect diverse life forms. The highlight of the site is the online exhibit The Phylogeny of Life, which contains many great images and photos to enhance the text. Without a specific navigational path, visitors can view the information in what ever pattern and level of detail...

As the name implies, the colorfully animated Switcheroo Zoo -- produced by Tubehead, an interactive multimedia studio -- allows you to swap the heads, legs, or tails of various zoo animals to create fantastical new creatures. Not just a place to watch cool morphing animation, this Web site has educational applications as well. Click on Educators' Resources, and scroll to the bottom of the page...

The California Academy of Sciences (last mentioned in the July 5, 2002 Scout Report), offers this well-designed and comprehensive Web site about skulls. Visitors will learn about skull structure and function, skull diversity, the living tissue associated with bones, and the role of the academy's skull collection in scientific research. This Web site is made especially appealing by its liberal use...

Florida's Indian River Lagoon (IRL) is recognized as possibly the most biologically diverse estuarine system in the continental US. The Smithsonian Marine Station at Fort Pierce manages the IRL Species Inventory Project, which includes an online database of taxonomic, ecological, and life history information of species in the estuary. Researchers, educators, and resource managers are encouraged to...

The Canadian Museum of Nature (CMN) offers an online version of its Natural History Notebook series originally published in 1977-81. Interesting facts and attractive black-and-white sketches are provided for each of the nearly 250 animal species (mostly vertebrates) featured in the Web site. All illustrations are by Charles Douglas, former chief illustrator at CMN. The notebook collection includes...

The following Web sites offer a quick tour of some of the planet's outsized inhabitants, from the relatively large (e.g. giant cave cockroach) to the just plain enormous (e.g. blue whale). The first Web site (1) is an Animal Planet Feature where visitors can meet giants of the past -- such as the giant komodo dragon and the giant sloth, and some of their smaller, modern-day cousins. The site...

Animals have been a furtive ground of exploration for artists for millennia, and they have been represented elegantly in painting, sculpture, and photographs, to name just a few of the most popular media used in their depiction. This novel online collection from the California Institute of Technology features dozens of animals in a whole new light: Infrared. Recently, a team of researchers took...

With this Web site, users may access free resources based on the nationally ranked collections of the Burke Museum at the University of Washington. Over 5 million specimens are to be found in four areas: anthropology, botany, geology, and zoology. Online resources linked to the zoology collections include a guide to the herpetofauna of Washington, two mammals databases, and a fun section on spider...