What is the Hymenoptera Ontology (HO)?

The goal of the HO working group (i.e., the HO organizing committee and all the morphologists participating in this venture) is to develop an explicit, controlled vocabulary of morphological terms relating to Hymenoptera (the HO) that:

• eliminates redundant terms
• defines (an illustrates) accepted terms
• establishes and clarifies homologies between hymenopteran lineages
• is hierarchically arranged (e.g., scape is “part of” the antenna, which is “part of” the head)
• identifies taxon specific terms (e.g., the cenchrus is found only in “Symphyta”)

Some initial version of the HO will be approved by the members of the International Society of Hymenopterists (ISH) and made available in a format that allows incorporation into databasing projects.  The HO will also be converted into an online (and published), illustrated atlas of hymenopteran anatomy.

More details are available on the Hymnoptera Ontology wikimedia site.

The HO development committee