The Abstract (AB) field, available from Volume 137 forward, contains abstracts that briefly summarize the information contained in the original document.

The Author (AU) field contains the name(s), personal and corporate, of the author(s) of the original document. From 1994 (Volume 130) forward, this field can contain up to 100 names. Prior to this time a maximum of 10 authors were cited, followed by "et al," if more than 10 authors were cited in the original item. Forenames may appear in full or as initials.

An alphabetic character in braces, such as {a}, follows the name of one author. The corresponding author address is available in the Author Address (IN) field.

The Descriptors (DE) field lists the subject terms that describe the key concept(s) relating to the animal(s) mentioned in the original document. Descriptor terms are preceded by the animal name(s) to which they relate. For example, in the sentence below, "Menida speciosa" is the animal name, "Yunnan" and "New species" are the descriptor terms that pertain to the animal name: Menida speciosa: Yunnan, New species.

A semi-colon (;) indicates the end of a sentence when multiple descriptor sentences are present.

The ISBN (IB) field contains the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) for monographs, books, and book chapters. In records from 1997 forward, the IB field contains the ten-character International Standard Book Number (ISBN) assigned to original documents that are books.

Note: this field is not available in the Zoological Record Archive.

The Author Address (IN) field lists the correspondence or contact address of an author of the original document. An alphabetic character in braces, such as {a}, preceding the address links the address to the corresponding author name in the Author (AU) field; the name is followed by the same alphabetic character in braces.

Note: this field is not available in the Zoological Record Archive.

The ISSN (IS) field contains the eight-digit International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) for the journal in which an article was published.

ISSN may be searched with the hyphen or with a space in place of the hyphen.

The Journal Name (JN) field contains the full name of the journal in which the article was published.

The Language (LG) field lists the language(s) of the original document. When searching, use the full language name. Up to ten languages can be listed in this field. Prior to 1994, the Notes (NT) field might contain additional language information.

The Notes (NT) field is optional, and contains additional miscellaneous bibliographic information related to the source document.

This field is not present in every record.

The Publication Types (PT) field describes the contents of the original document. Use this field to limit your search to a particular type of document. More than one document type can describe the original document. Publication Types are:

The Super-Taxa (ST) field contains high-level taxonomic terms, taken from the Zoological Record Systematic Thesaurus, that enable retrieval of citations referring to broad categories of animals. The term for the broadest animal group is listed first followed by the more specific terms in the hierarchy. In the example below, "Aves" is the broadest controlled animal group term and Acciptitridae is the most specific thesaurus term applied: Aves, Falconiformes, Accipitridae;

A semi-colon (;) indicates the end of a sentence when multiple descriptor sentences are present.

The Systematics (SY) field contains terms relating to the taxonomic hierarchy to which each organism mentioned in the original document is assigned. All taxonomic and nomenclatural information is attached to the appropriate animal name in this field. The author date for the animal name might be included in these entries.

Index Searching for the SY field can be any of the following combinations: For example, in the sentence below, "Abacarus Animalia, Arthropoda, Arachnida, Acari. is the combination of the Organism Name and Organism Hierarchy Data, or " Abacarus Keifer 1944" is the combination of the Organism Name and Organism Author Date or " Abacarus Acari" is the combination of the Organism Name and Organism Classifier or " Abacarus Key to species," is the combination of the Organism Name and Systematics Controlled Term or " Abacarus China, P. 39,Published electronically" is the combination of the Organism Name and Systematics Modifier or " Abacarus New Record" is the combination of the Organism Name and OrganismSpec.

Abacarus [Animalia, Arthropoda, Arachnida, Acari] Keifer 1944 (Acari): Key to species,China, P. 39,Published electronically,New record;

A semi-colon (;) indicates the end of a sentence when multiple descriptor sentences are present.

This field does not display in every record.

The Title (TI) field contains the title of the original document. Both original and English-language titles are included. Special characters or symbols are transliterated and enclosed in brackets.

Translated titles display on a new line after the original title.

Note: For book chapter records, the chapter title displays in the TI field; the book title displays in the Book Title and Source (BT) field.

The Zoological Records Update (ZU) index contains the year and month the item was originally produced by BIOSIS. For items produced 1978 - 2003, BIOSIS Update contains only the year of production followed by "00" (for example, 200300). The same is true for the Zoological Record Archive. For items produced from 2004 and late , Zoological Records Update contains the year and month of production (for example, 200512).

This field displays as part of the Update Code (UP) field.