Although the scientific classification of the ‘animal kingdom’ (Animalia) includes many taxonomic ranks and subdivisions, my personal interest is focused on the species that I’m likely to see and photograph. This includes Birds (Aves) and Mammals (Mammalia) plus a few selected Reptiles (Reptillia) and, to a lesser degree, Amphibians (Amphibia) and Insects (Insecta).

My taxonomic listings started with birds as I was photographing so many different species that I wanted to accurately identify and record. The latest IOC ‘World Bird List’ confirms there are over 10,700 extant species split into 245 families and 40 orders. I have a separate dedicated page for Birds (see above link) where I’ve listed all the orders and non-passerine families, plus a selected personal list of passerine (song bird) families.

Amphibia is primarily made up of frogs and toads of which there are close on 6,000 species. Given that I photograph these species so infrequently I’ll worry about identification and cataloguing at the time. Similarly with insects where the class Insecta includes around 30 orders containing over a million species in a thousand or so families! Whilst I’d like to do more macro photography I’ll stick with identifying any butterfly, dragonfly, beetle or tropical bug once I have a photo of it rather than trying to understand the taxonomy.

However, the situation with birds and the more common animals (essentially mammals and a few reptiles) that I’m likely to encounter during our travels are a different matter as I’ve now photographed well in excess of a thousand species. Not only do I want to ensure that I’m correctly naming those species, but I also need a robust cataloguing system. I achieve this using Lightroom keywords arranged in taxonomic order. It’s not that I want to be clever in understanding the taxonomy, it’s just that I want to properly tag my photos. But, at the same time, I do find the subject of taxonomic classification interesting. If I didn’t, this page wouldn’t exist!

So the purpose of this ‘data file’ is to list the taxonomic ORDER and Family and, if appropriate, Subfamily and Tribe, of all the animal species that I’ve encountered or are likely to encounter, or that need to be included to complete an entry - for example, I couldn’t split down primates without reference to the wet-nosed species, relatives of the baboons or great apes.

The list is in loose simplified taxonomic order for personal reference.