Zoology has a long history and is closely related to human production activities. In the primitive society with fishing and hunting as the main mode of production, human beings gradually realized the living habits and body structures of some animals closely related to human beings, and then tried to raise and domesticate beneficial animals, prevent and control harmful animals, and accumulated some animal knowledge. Many characters such as animals, birds, fish and insects can be identified in Oracle Bone Inscriptions of Shang Dynasty 4,700 years ago. Later hieroglyphics also took "insect", "fish" and "raccoon" as radicals, which shows that there is a certain classification concept. More than 3,000 years ago, the book "Summer" recorded ecological phenomena such as "floating in May and ants entering the nest in December". There are more than 100 kinds of animals mentioned in the Book of Songs in the Spring and Autumn Period. 2,500 years ago, Shang Yu Shu Gong Pian recorded the species of economic animals in nine regions at that time, which was the bud of zoogeography in China. In Zhou Li more than 2000 years ago, animals were divided into five categories: fur, feather, medium, scale and clam, which were roughly equivalent to mammals, birds, crustaceans, fish and mollusks in modern animal classification. Erya in Han Dynasty has five categories: releasing insects, releasing fish, releasing birds, releasing animals and releasing livestock, and each article contains nearly 100 kinds of animals. The phenomenon of human blood circulation mentioned by Bian Que in Difficult Classics in Sui and Tang Dynasties was about 1000 years earlier than that of British scholar W Harvey. The Book of Qi Yaomin written by Jia Sixie in the Northern Wei Dynasty summarized many experiences in fishery, mulberry, agriculture and animal husbandry. Lateral line scales number is regarded as an important character of fish classification in Materia Medica by Chen Zangqi in Tang Dynasty, and it has been used ever since. During the Jin Dynasty from 265 to 420 A.D., China took the lead in compiling the Animal Atlas, recorded the Southern Vegetation (304), and drew the scene of people using ants to put out citrus pests, which was the earliest example of biological control in the world. Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica in Ming Dynasty recorded more than 400 kinds of animals, many of which were accompanied by outline drawings, which was a masterpiece in the history of zoology.

In the west, from 384 to 322 BC, Aristotle in ancient Greece systematically described hundreds of kinds of animals and was known as the father of zoology. Of the 37 volumes of natural history compiled by Pliny Sr, Volume 7 ~ 1 1 is the content of zoology.

/kloc-After the 6th century, zoology showed great vitality, and academic works emerged one after another, especially the progress of taxonomy and anatomy. The appearance of/kloc-microscope in the 0/7th century promoted the prosperity of histology, embryology and protozoology in the field of microscopy. /kloc-in the 8th century, C.von Linnaeus, a Swedish biologist, founded the animal classification system and binomial method, which divided animals and plants into five orders: class, order, genus, species and variety, laying the foundation for modern taxonomy. From the end of 18 to the beginning of 19, the French biologist J.-B.de Lamarck put forward the viewpoint of species evolution, and thought that animals can change, develop and improve under the influence of living environment. At the same time, Habitat has also made contributions to comparative anatomy and paleontology. /kloc-in the middle of 0/9th century, German biologist T.A.H Schwann clarified that the basic structural unit of animal body is cell. From 65438 to 0859, British scientist C.R. Darwin established the theory of biological evolution, and analyzed the diversity, identity and variability of natural animals with original vivid examples of "survival competition" and "natural selection", which promoted the progress of zoology. The new achievements of evolution theory in the 20th century further prove that mutation has produced a new genetic basis, which is of great significance in evolution. Natural selection and reproductive isolation make different populations of the same species develop in different directions.

Since the 20th century, zoology has developed by leaps and bounds due to the mutual penetration of disciplines and the continuous improvement of research methods. Today's zoology has risen from the stage of observation and description in the past to the peak of studying the law of life activities.