It contains over 340,000 published name instances with their authorities and details of their original publication (as "microcitations", i.e. journal or book title, volume and page), certain nomenclatural notes and cross references, and an indication of the taxonomic group to which each is assigned.

An electronic (digitised) version of volumes 1-10 was released online by the uBio project, based at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, in 2004–2005.

Owing, however, to the absence from the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature of any clear definition of what constitutes publication, I have been compelled, with some reluctance, to include names that appear in privately printed works.

It does not, however, include the many errors that are necessarily to be found in secondary publications, such as earlier Nomenclators, and works of reference, such as the Zoological Record.

With the approval of the original publishers and financial support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, the uBio project, based at the Marine Biological Laboratory/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Library in Woods Hole, U.S.A., undertook a project to digitise the printed volumes 1-9 of Nomenclator Zoologicus, to which was added content from the electronic volume 10, which made available on the internet in 2004–2005.

Key benefits arising from the conversion of the content into digital form include the ability for a user to search across all original volumes simultaneously, the provision of search via the internet from any desktop (bypassing of the previous requirement for a user to physically locate and access the printed works), and the potential mobilisation of the data into the broader arena of biodiversity informatics including its availability for re-use and enhancement by other projects (see below).

In the second case, the distinction between the unavailable (nomen nudum) and validly published instance is important both nomenclaturally and taxonomically, and so two records have been created based on the single Nomenclator entry, namely one for Ablabera Dejean, 1833 (listed as a nomen nudum: IRMNG 1396991, GBIF 7538591) plus another for Ablabera Erichson, 1847 (IRMNG 1232986, GBIF 1050104).

From the above examples it is clear that, although lacking some desirable supplementary information, the set of over 340,000 original Nomenclator records provides a huge foundation upon which subsequent biodiversity informatics initiatives have built further.

[4] The original uBio database file used as base data for the R. Page cross mapped version cited above is accessible via the URL https://github.com/rdmpage/nomenclator-zoologicus/tree/master/data .