Teleost Taxonomy Ontology

Summary

This is an ontology of taxonomic terms (names of taxonomic groups) used in the systematics of fish, including non-teleost groups such as Chondrichtyes (sharks and rays), Sarcopterygia (lungfish and coelacanths), lampreys, and hagfish. It contains (as of August 2010) over 36,000 names and over 43,000 taxonomic synonyms. A majority of the taxonomic names and synonyms were made available from the Catalog of Fishes. Additional names and synonyms are added as a result of our curation activities.

Details of changes are recorded in the TTO_Changes page, (though this is not frequently updated), and summarized in the cvs commit comments.

The current release may be found here.

License

To the extent possible under law, Peter E. Midford has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to the Teleost Taxonomy Ontology (TTO). This work is published from the United States.

Organization

                              Ictaluridae   -------------------->  TaxRank:Family
                                   ^               has_rank
                                   |
                              is_a |
                                   |
                               Ictalurus    -------------------->  TaxRank:Genus
                                   ^             has_rank
                                   |
                              is_a |
                                   |
Channel catfish <--------+Ictalurus punctatus ---------------->  TaxRank:Species
                         |                       has_rank
                         |
Silurus argentinus<------+

List of Relations and Synonym Types

Name	Relation or Synonym	Notes
COMMONNAME	synonym type	synonymous common name
MISSPELLING	synonym type	synonym resulting from identifiable misspelling
TAXONNAMEUSAGE	synonym type	synonym that includes an (author year) citation
property_value: has_rank	metadata relation	links taxa to ranks
property_value: is_extinct	boolean metadata relation	indicates taxa only known from fossils

Notes

• The taxonomic rank specified by the has_rank relation is specified by its identifier. The most common are TAXRANK:0000004 (family), TAXRANK:0000005 (genus), TAXRANK:0000006 (species).
• At present is_extinct does not include recently extinct taxa.