ZooBank is an open access website intended to be the official International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) registry of zoological nomenclature.[3] Any nomenclatural acts (e.g. publications that create or change a taxonomic name) published electronically need to be registered with ZooBank prior to publication to be "officially" recognized by the ICZN Code of Nomenclature. Acts published in physical publications are encouraged, but not required to be registered prior to their publication.
Life Science Identifiers (LSIDs) are used as the globally unique identifier for ZooBank registration entries.[4]
The ZooBank prototype was seeded with data from Index to Organism Names (http://www.organismnames.com), which was compiled from the scientific literature in Zoological Record now owned by Thomson Reuters.