246 ARTICLES Herpetological Review, 2021, 52(2), 246–255. © 2021 by Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles A Quarter Century of Reptile and Amphibian Databases In 2020, the Reptile Database (RDB) and AmphibiaWeb (AW) Database have grown for a quarter century. More specifically, celebrated their 25th and 20th anniversaries, respectively. Here, we outline the similarities and differences of each project, their we briefly review their history and highlight the biodiversity operation and content, and review their histories, activities, informatics context in which AmphibiaWeb and the Reptile users, and shared challenges. Amphibians and reptiles represent almost one-third of PETER UETZ*1 all vertebrates, and may contain more species than birds and Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia 23284, USA mammals combined (but see Dickinson and Christidis 2014, e-mail:
[email protected],
[email protected] Dickinson and Remsen 2014, Barrowclough et al. 2016, Padial MICHELLE S. KOO*2 and de la Riva 2021). Conservation concerns, a growing body Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, of literature, and the rise of the internet in the 1990s led to the Berkeley, California 94720, USA; e-mail:
[email protected] creation of several major efforts to provide online biodiversity 1 ROCÍO AGUILAR databases, including AW and the RDB (Table 1). Monash University, University of Melbourne, Museums Victoria, Melbourne, Australia wHy dAtAbases? ELIZABETH BRINGS1 Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia 23284, USA The tenth edition of Systema Naturae, published by Linneaus 2 ALESSANDRO CATENAZZI in 1758, contained data on more than 4000 animal species, which Florida International University, Miami, Florida 33199, USA one could view as the first taxonomic database.