A great place on the web to get information on nearly any animal family is its SSC Specialist Group’s website.
THE IUCN
The International Union for Conservation of Nature, or the IUCN, was founded in 1948 and today comprises over 1,000 member organizations in 140 countries, according to its website. The IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species, begun in 1963, is a comprehensive list of the conservation statuses of the world’s wildlife. Species and subspecies of concern are placed in the following categories:
- Least concern
- Near threatened
- Vulnerable
- Endangered
- Critically endangered
- Extinct in the wild
- Possibly extinct
The status of each species is monitored and evaluated by a Species Survival Commission (SSC) Specialist Group. Some Specialist Groups focus on specific species or families, while others are responsible for larger numbers of related species or even geographic or disciplinary areas .
IUCN.org offers a convenient directory to all its SSC Specialty Groups, which you can check out here.
If you’re in the mood for cute, take a thorough look at the Otter Specialist Group at http://www.otterspecialistgroup.org.
