Unitaxon Browser 2.0 is an easy-to-use tool for viewing, searching, and annotating large taxonomic classifications, presented in a very high performance graphical outline (tree) format.

The product has been used extensively by professional taxonomists and vertebrate paleontologists at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City for several years.

Unitaxon Browser will read and display any classification file that conforms to the published Unitaxon specification. For portability, the file format is ASCII-text based, and can easily be created by exporting taxonomic data from most other databases. The Unitaxon Browser manual contains a complete file format specification (PDF).

For instance, the most recent classification of the Mammals has been placed on the net in Unitaxon Browser format. It is our expectation and hope that other large taxonomic databases will follow suit.

Documentation is distributed on the CD in industry-standard Adobe Acrobat PDF format.

Unitaxon Browser 2.0 is available directly from its developer, Mathemaesthetics, Inc. The application is distributed on CD for both Macintosh (System 8 and 9) and Windows (95 or later) operating systems. The Browser will work in Classic compatibity mode under Mac OS X. For maximum performance reasons, the Browser reads the entire classification into memory when you open the file. Depending on the level of taxon commenting in the database, the overhead is currently about 1MB RAM per 1200 taxa on average.

Classification files are the responsibility of the various scientific groups who create and maintain the data. These files are not distributed with the Browser. Annotations the end user makes to a particular classification file are kept in a separate file, so as to make it possible for the official caretakers of the root database to easily manage new information sent to them by colleagues in their field.

The price per copy for the Browser is US $128, plus shipping/handling.

If you are a PowerPC Macintosh user, you can order a copy using your Visa or Mastercard credit card, Just download our simple Unitaxon Ordering Software, and following its instructions.

If you are running under OS X, you should download the OS X order form program.

Your order information will be converted into a private machine-readable format. All you do is email it to us for processing.

If you are a Windows user, you'll have to contact us by phone, fax, or email with your ordering information.

In either case, we accept institutional purchase orders by fax or mail.