I’m a Scientist is like school science lessons meet the X Factor! School students choose which scientist gets a prize of $1000 to communicate their work.
Scientists and students talk on this website. They both break down barriers, have fun and learn. But only the students get to vote.
This zone is the Boron Zone. It has a range of scientists studying all different topics. Who gets the prize? YOU decide!
Terrific question! Some scientists’ specialise in taxonomy, which involves identifying, describing, naming and interpreting the interrelationships between one and another. These scientists write “taxonomic Keys” (in scientific papers or books) this enables other scientists (or interested people) to work out what an animal is.
Using my general knowledge of an area, being able to recognise what I’ve seen before, going to the resources available or on occasions directly to scientists working in the area all help in the identification process.
Sometimes the differences between species are relatively straight forward to work out, but on other occasions species identification can only be done via internal examinations or genetic tests – so it can be very specialised. The really specialised “stuff” is not the taxonomic end I tend to be involved with.
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