Identification (biology)

Identification in biology is the process of assigning a pre-existing individual or class name to an individual organism. Identification of organisms to individual names (or codes) may be based on individualistic natural body features (e. g., [ [http://www.environment.gov.au/coasts/publications/ballina-workshop-2004/pubs/burns.pdf Photographic identification of individual humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) on their southern migration past Ballina, NSW, with comparisons to other humpback whale databases from eastern Australia ] ] ), experimentally created individual markers (e.g., color dot patterns), or natural individualistic molecular markers (similar to those used in maternity or paternity identification tests). Individual identification is used, e.g., in ecology, wildlife management or conservation biology. The more common form of identification is the identification of organisms to common (e. g., "lion") scientific (e. g., "Panthera leo") class names. By necessity this is based on inherited features ("characters") of the organisms, the inheritance forming the basis of defining a class. The features may, e. g., be morphological, anatomical, physiological, behavioral, or molecular.

The term "determination" may occasionally be used as a synonym for identification (e. g., [Osborne, D. V. 1963. Some Aspects of the theory of dichotomous keys. New Phytologist, 62 (2): 144-160.] or as in "determination slips" [ [http://www.chah.gov.au/avh/help/specimen/about_determination.html The herbarium specimen - help text ] ] ).

Identification methods may be manual or computerized and may involve using identification keys, browsing through fields guide that contain (often illustrated) species accounts, or comparing the organism with specimens from natural history collections.

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