GenBank Taxonomy: Is a Rabbit a Fish?
Users are starting to notice the taxonomy changes in GenBank. This is the result of a project started 2 years ago to build a uniform, phylogenetically based taxonomy for GenBank. Because the taxonomy is based on phylogenetics, some of the relationships appear unusual at first glance, such as the inclusion of humans and rabbits under bony fish. In the current classification, for example, the Gnathostomata (jawed vertebrates) include all vertebrates except the lampreys and hagfish; the Osteichthyes (bony vertebrates) include all Gnathostomata except the cartilaginous fish; and the Sarcopterygii (lobe-finned fishes) include all Osteichthyes except the ray-finned fishes. Phylogenetic Approach The impetus for the project was the need for a consistent and comprehensive sequence-based taxonomy to process and query the sequence databases built at NCBI. With the support of the international collaborating databases, EMBL and DDBJ, the GenBank taxonomy was developed by merging and unifying taxono
