__NOTOC__ ''Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia'' is a large comprehensive encyclopedia of animal life. It is named after its original editor in chief,

Bernhard Grzimek Bernhard Klemens Maria Grzimek (; 24 April 1909 – 13 March 1987) was a German zoo director, zoologist, book author, editor, and animal conservationist in postwar West Germany. Biography Early years and education Grzimek was born in Neisse (N ...

().{{Cite web, title=Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia act sheet, publisher=Gale Cengage Learning , year=2008 , url=http://www.gale.cengage.com/pdf/facts/Grzimek.pdf , accessdate=2010-09-27 , url-status=dead , archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20111027140730/http://www.gale.cengage.com/pdf/facts/Grzimek.pdf , archivedate=October 27, 2011 Originally the encyclopedia was published as a 13-volume set in

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

under the name ''Grzimeks Tierleben'' (''Grzimek's Animal Life'') in 1967-1972; it was translated into

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

in 1972-75. The encyclopedia was an international collaboration by a large number of scientists including

Theodor Haltenorth Dr. Theodor Haltenorth (May 18, 1910 – January 30, 1981) was a German mammalogist. He worked mainly in Munich, Bavaria, Germany, and was a key figure in the Quagga Project. He also taxonomised the Cretan wildcat The Cretan wildcat is a me ...

, Wolfgang Gewalt, Heinz-Georg Klös,

Konrad Lorenz Konrad Zacharias Lorenz (; 7 November 1903 – 27 February 1989) was an Austrian zoologist, ethologist, and ornithologist. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Karl von Frisch. He is often regarded ...

Heinz Heck Heinz Heck (22 January 1894 – 5 March 1982) was a German biologist and director of Hellabrunn Zoo (''Tierpark Hellabrunn'') in Munich. He was born in Berlin and died in Munich. With his brother, Lutz Heck, who was director of the Berlin ...

Lutz Heck Ludwig Georg Heinrich Heck, called Lutz Heck (23 April 1892 in Berlin, German Empire – 6 April 1983 in Wiesbaden, West Germany) was a German zoologist, animal researcher, animal book author and director of the Berlin Zoological Garden where he ...

Jean Dorst Jean Dorst (7 August 1924 – 8 August 2001) was a French ornithologist. Dorst was born at Mulhouse and studied biology and paleontology at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Paris. In 1947 he joined the staff of the Muséum national d' ...

Constantine Walter Benson Constantine Walter Benson OBE (2 February 1909 – 21 September 1982) was a British ornithologist and author of over 350 publications. He is considered the last of a line of British Colonial officials that made significant contributions to ornit ...

Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt (; 15 June 1928 – 2 June 2018) was an Austrian ethologist in the field of human ethology. In authoring the book which bears that title, he applied ethology to humans by studying them in a perspective more common to vol ...

Helmut Sick Helmut Sick (10 January 1910 – 5 March 1991) was a German-Brazilian ornithologist. Sick was born in Leipzig, Germany. He emigrated to Brazil in 1939. A prominent ornithologist in Brazil, Sick published more than 200 papers, including his most ...

Heini Hediger Heini Hediger (30 November 1908 in Basel – 29 August 1992 in Bern) was a Swiss biologist noted for work in proxemics in animal behavior and is known as the "father of zoo biology". Hediger was formerly the director of Tierpark Dählhölzli (1 ...

, Wolfgang Makatsch, Erich Thenius,

Erna Mohr Erna W. Mohr (July 11, 1894September 10, 1968) was a German zoologist who made contributions to ichthyology and mammalogy. Mohr was long associated with the Zoological Museum Hamburg, where she was successively head of the Fish Biology Departme ...

Adolf Portmann Adolf Portmann (27 May 1897 – 28 June 1982) was a Swiss zoologist. Born in Basel, Switzerland, he studied zoology at the University of Basel and worked later in Geneva, Munich, Paris and Berlin, but mainly in marine biology laboratories in Fr ...

Nagamichi Kuroda was a Japanese ornithologist. His works included ''Birds of the Island of Java'' (2 Volumes, 1933–36) and ''Parrots of the World in Life Colours'' (1975). He described the crested shelduck in 1917. He also worked on the distinction between th ...

, Lester L. Short,

Gerlof Fokko Mees Gerlof Fokko Mees (16 June 1926 – 31 March 2013) was a Dutch ichthyologist, ornithologist and museum curator. During 1946 to 1949 he took part as a conscript in the military actions to reestablish rule in the Dutch East Indies. During that tim ...

, and

Andrew John Berger Andrew John Berger (August 30, 1915 – July 4, 1995) was an American ornithologist from the American Museum of Natural History. Berger was born in Warren, Ohio on August 30, 1915. In 1939 he graduated from Oberlin College. After doing fieldwo ...

. It was later extensively updated and republished in a 17-volume second edition under the supervision of Michael Hutchins in 2003. Some university libraries offer access to a digitized version of the second edition. The German edition also published three supplementary volumes: ''Entwicklungsgeschichte der Lebewesen'' (''History of Life''), ''Verhaltensforschung'' (''Behavioural Research'') and ''Unsere Umwelt als Lebensraum - Ökologie'' (''Our Environment as Living Space - Ecology'').

Online portal

In fall 2009,

Gale Cengage Gale is a global provider of research and digital learning resources. The company is based in Farmington Hills, Michigan, west of Detroit. It has been a division of Cengage since 2007. The company, formerly known as Gale Research and the Gale G ...

released a web-based version of the encyclopedia, with access to the web site by subscription. The site allows users to rate articles and to submit videos and photography.''Gale Launches Digital Version of Grzimek’s Animal Life Encyclopedia''
Cengage Press Release, 12 October 2009

Volumes for original 1967-1972 Edition

*Volume 1: Lower Animals (

Protozoa Protozoa (singular: protozoan or protozoon; alternative plural: protozoans) are a group of single-celled eukaryotes, either free-living or parasitic, that feed on organic matter such as other microorganisms or organic tissues and debris. Histo ...

Sponges Sponges, the members of the phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), are a basal animal clade as a sister of the diploblasts. They are multicellular organisms that have bodies full of pores and channels allowing water to circulate through ...

Cnidarians Cnidaria () is a phylum under kingdom Animalia containing over 11,000 species of aquatic animals found both in freshwater and marine environments, predominantly the latter. Their distinguishing feature is cnidocytes, specialized cells that th ...

, "Worms", Non-Hexapod

Arthropods Arthropods (, (gen. ποδός)) are invertebrate animals with an exoskeleton, a Segmentation (biology), segmented body, and paired jointed appendages. Arthropods form the phylum Arthropoda. They are distinguished by their jointed limbs and Arth ...

) *Volume 2: Insects (

Springtails Springtails (Collembola) form the largest of the three lineages of modern hexapods that are no longer considered insects (the other two are the Protura and Diplura). Although the three orders are sometimes grouped together in a class called Ent ...

and Relatives,

Insects Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs of j ...

) *Volume 3: Mollusks and Echinoderms (

Mollusks Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is esti ...

, "Lophophorates", Non-Vertebrate

Deuterostomes Deuterostomia (; in Greek) are animals typically characterized by their anus forming before their mouth during embryonic development. The group's sister clade is Protostomia, animals whose digestive tract development is more varied. Some exampl ...

) *Volume 4: Fishes 1 *Volume 5: Fishes 2 and Amphibia *Volume 6: Reptiles *Volume 7-9: Birds *Volume 10-13: Mammals

Volumes for 2003 Edition

*Volume 1: Lower

Metazoan Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals Heterotroph, consume organic material, Cellular respiration#Aerobic respiration, breathe oxygen, are Motility, able to move, ca ...

s and Lesser

Deuterostome Deuterostomia (; in Greek) are animals typically characterized by their anus forming before their mouth during embryonic development. The group's sister clade is Protostomia, animals whose digestive tract development is more varied. Some exampl ...

s *Volume 2:

Protostome Protostomia () is the clade of animals once thought to be characterized by the formation of the organism's mouth before its anus during embryonic development. This nature has since been discovered to be extremely variable among Protostomia's memb ...

s *Volume 3:

Insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs ...

s *Volume 4-5:

Fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...

*Volume 6:

Amphibian Amphibians are tetrapod, four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the Class (biology), class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terres ...

s *Volume 7:

Reptile Reptiles, as most commonly defined are the animals in the class Reptilia ( ), a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsids except birds. Living reptiles comprise turtles, crocodilians, squamates (lizards and snakes) and rhynchocephalians ( ...

s *Volume 8-11:

Bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

s *Volume 12-16:

Mammal Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...

s *Volume 17: Index

References

External links

*Bernhard Grzimek, George M. Narita
''Grzimek’s animal life encyclopedia''
(1. edition, online) Zoology books Encyclopedias of science English-language encyclopedias German encyclopedias 1967 non-fiction books 1972 non-fiction books 2003 non-fiction books 20th-century encyclopedias

Online portal

Volumes for original 1967-1972 Edition

Volumes for 2003 Edition

See also

References

External links