WRITTEN in the DNA of every animal is a unique barcode that could let taxonomists identify every animal on the planet with unprecedented ease.
The barcode is written on a mitochondrial gene, which is found in all aerobic life, that codes for a protein called cytochrome c oxidase I. The new method should make life easier for scientists trying to assess biodiversity.
Conventional taxonomy has hit a bottleneck because it demands expert anatomical comparisons of complete animal specimens. It has taken 250 years to classify about one million animal species – about 10 per cent of the global total, says…
