This is a chronologically organized listing of notable zoological events and discoveries.
Ancient world
28000 BC. Cave paintings (e.g. Chauvet Cave) in Southern France and northern Spain depict animals in a stylized fashion. These European cave paintings depict Mammoths (the same species is later seen thawed ice in Siberia). 12000-8000 BC. Bubalus Period creation of rock art in the Central Sahara depicting a range of animals including elephants, antelopes, rhinoceros and catfish. 10000 BC. Humans (Homo sapiens) domesticated dogs, pigs, sheep, goats, fowl, and other animals in Europe, northern Africa and the Near East. 6500 BC. The aurochs, ancestors of domestic cattle, were domesticated in the next two centuries if not earlier (Obre I, Yugoslavia). This was the last major animal to be tamed as a source of milk, meat, power, and leather in the Old World.
3500 BC. Sumerian animal-drawn wheeled vehicles and plows were developed in Mesopotamia, the region called the "Fertile Crescent". Irrigation was probably done using animal power. Since Sumeria had no natural defenses, armies with mounted cavalry and chariots became important, increasing the importance of equines (horses and donkeys). 2000 BC. Domestication of the silkworm in China. 1100 BC. Won Chang (China), first of the Zhou emperors, stocked his imperial zoological garden with deer, goats, birds, and fish from many parts of the world. The emperor also enjoyed sporting events with the use of animals. 850 BC. Homer (Greek) wrote the epics Iliad and Odyssey, which both contain animals as monsters and metaphors (gross soldiers turned into pigs by the witch Circe), but also some correct observations on bees and fly maggots. Both epics make reference to mules. 610 BC. Anaximander (Greek, 610 BC–545 BC) was a student of Thales of Miletus. He taught that the first life was formed by spontaneous generation in the mud. Later animals came into being by transmutations, left the water, and reached dry land. Man was derived from lower animals, probably aquatic. His writings, especially his poem On Nature, were read and cited by Aristotle and other later philosophers, but are lost. 563? BC. Buddha (Indian, 563?–483 BC) had gentle ideas on the treatment of animals. He said that animals are held to have intrinsic worth, not just the values they derive from their usefulness to man. 500 BC. Empedocles of Agrigentum (Greek, 504–433 BC) reportedly rid a town of malaria by draining nearby swamps. He proposed the theory of the four humors and a natural origin of living things.
500 BC. Xenophanes (Greek, 576–460 BC), a disciple of Pythagoras (570–497 BC), first recognized fossils as animal remains and inferred that their presence on mountains indicated the latter had once been beneath the sea. "If horses or oxen had hands and could draw or make statues, horses would represent the forms of gods as horses, oxen as oxen." Galen (130–216 AD) revived interest in fossils that had been rejected by Aristotle, and the speculations of Xenophanes were again viewed with favor. 470 BC. Democritus of Abdera (Greek, 470–370 BC) made dissections of many animals and humans. He was the first Greek philosopher-scientist to propose a classification of animals, dividing them into blooded animals (Vertebrata) and bloodless animals (Evertebrata). He also held that lower animals had perfected organs and that the brain was the seat of thought. 460 BC. Hippocrates (Greek, 460–370 BC), the "Father of Medicine", used animal dissections to advance human anatomy. 440 BC. Herodotus of Halikarnassos (Greek, 484–425 BC) treated exotic fauna in his Historia, but his accounts are often based on tall tales. He explored the Nile, but much of ancient Egyptian civilization was already lost to living memory by his time. 427 BC. Plato (Greek, 427–347 BC) held that animals existed to serve man, but they should not be mistreated because this would lead people to mistreat others. Others who have echoed this opinion are St. Thomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant, and Albert Schweitzer. 384 BC. Aristotle's (Greek, 384–322 BC) books Historia Animalium (9 books), , and set the zoological stage for centuries. He emphasized the value of direct observation, recognized law and order in biological phenomena, and derived conclusions inductively from observations. He believed that there was a natural scale of animals that ran from simple to complex. He made advances in marine biology, basing his writings on keen observation and rational interpretation as well as conversations with local Lesbos fishermen for two years, beginning in 344 BC. His account of male protection of eggs by the barking catfish was scorned for centuries until Louis Agassiz confirmed Aristotle's description.