The BioKIDS project, a partner project to the Animal Diversity Web, has been shown to improve scores on state standardized tests for participating students from the Detroit area. Students involved in the BioKIDS curriculum had an average gain of a full grade level science abilities on the science portion of the MEAP test, which represents a significant effort toward closing the gap between urban students and students in the rest of the state. For more details, please see the news item in the University Record, or project papers at the BioKIDS site.

The Animal Diversity Web has been working on innovative new ways to easily fix and update our taxonomic database. We use taxonomic data from multiple taxonomic authorities. Our avian taxonomy has been updated to be consistent with the new Howard and Moore "Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World (3rd edition, 2003). The Howard and Moore list is from the family to the subspecies level so, for higher level avian taxonomy we rely on the recommendations of the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology Bird Division. This new taxonomic arrangement includes mapping all new names to their older synonyms, so no information has been lost in the transition.

Look for new taxonomic updates in the coming months!

Dr. Philip Myers, director and founder of the Animal Diversity Web, was recently honored for his contributions to the understanding of the ecology and evolution of the South American rodent genus, Akodon. A newly described species of Akodon (family Cricetidae) from northern Argentina was named for Dr. Myers, Akodon philipmyersi. Please see our account on this new rodent species to learn more about its natural history: http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Akodon_philipmyersi.html.

This new species is described in a recent article in the Journal of Mammalogy: Pardiñas, U., G. D'Elía, S. Cirignoli, and P. Suarez. 2005. A new species of Akodon (Rodentia: Cricetidae) from the northern Campos grasslands of Argentina. Journal of Mammalogy: 86(3):462-474.

Dr. Philip Myers, director of the Animal Diversity Web, and Amelia Wenk, a member of the BioKIDS team in the School of Education, traveled to Washington, D.C. to participate in the Coalition for National Science Funding exhibition for congressional representatives on June 20, 2005. The BioKIDS project, a partner project to the Animal Diversity Web, was selected to represent the science education initiatives funded by the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Please see the AERA news item here.