To analyze, classify, and come to understand all forms of animal life, using methods of comparative anatomy and other systemic procedures. Zoologists seek to understand the structure of animal bodies, their habits, how they live, grow and reproduce, and how they interact with plants and other animals.

What is the best system we can construct for analyzing, classifying, and understanding all forms of animal life? What forms and structures unify and differentiate animal species? What can we learn about animals from animal embryology, physiology, anatomy, ecology, and biochemistry? What is the life cycle, distribution, and evolutionary history of this or that particular animal species?

Is taken from field and laboratory observations of animals, particularly as they function in groups. Zoologists gather information about the structure of animals as well as processes common within animal groups. Zoologists also use basic information from biology (e.g., from cell biology, anatomy, physiology, embryology, genetics, sociobiology, and biochemistry).

Zoologists make judgments about ways in which animals are alike and different, about what makes them living things, about the foods they gather, the ways they reproduce, the ways they have evolved and are evolving, about the parasites that live within and on them, about their diseases and their health, in short, about the most significant distinctions between and among them.

Include that of unifying traits and diversifying variations of animal life, including protozoa, cell, food gatherer, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species, morphology (systems of muscles or bones), histology (body tissues), cytology (cells and their components), neurology, embryological origin, animal physiology, anatomy, homeostasis, heredity, genetics, ecology, biochemistry, invertebrate zoology, entomology (insects), malacology (mollusks), vertebrate zoology, ichthyology (fish), herpetology (amphibians and reptiles), ornithology (birds), mammalogy (mammals), vertebrate zoology.

That there are ways to analyze and classify all forms of animal life so as to shed light on the forms and structures that unify and differentiate them, and that by understanding the similarities and differences between them we can reconstruct evolutionary history.

Zoology carries with it important implications for understanding the basis of evolution and the world ecosystem. Zoology has made a significant contribution to our understanding of ecosystems and their fragility, and provided insights into more sensible ways to manage agriculture, forests, and marine life. Finally, it has led to many other applications in diverse areas, including medicine.

Zoologists see animals as functioning in groups in interrelationships with one another and the natural world. And they see the study of animals as vital to understanding how animals function, adapt, evolve, and survive.