ethical. virtual. educational.
The program “Virtual Zoology”, which has been started in summer 2015 at the Dept. of Ecology and Evolution (University of Salzburg, Austria), is designed to develop a novel teaching and training tool, based on a complete library of virtual key species of the chordate and non-chordate phylum.
Every year, millions of animals are sacrificed for educational purpose in schools and universities all around the globe. Thus, we ground our mission on a 1:1 virtual representation of various vertebrates with an emphasis on morphological details never seen before. 
We aim to reduce animal suffering and to increase the educational potency for schools and universities by a Virtual Zoology.
The interactive 3D-environment will provide a number of controllable physiological functions, including the motility of muscles and skeletal structures, the uptake and transport of nutrients, pulmonary or gill breathing and vascular circulation. In addition, virtual dissections and real-time comparison of anatomical structures will be enabled.
Our true-to-life virtual compendium of animals will see the light of day by modern VR/AR/MR-Technologies and, in addition, populate Virtual Dissection Tables to allow for a maximum of student-teacher interactions.
However, it should be emphasized that Virtual Zoology is not supposed to fully replace classical practical courses, but is designed to be utilised alongside and will drastically reduce the number of animals needed for graduate and undergraduate teaching.
