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Natural history
Study of organisms including plants or animals in their environment / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Natural history (disambiguation).
"Naturalist" redirects here. For other uses, see Naturalist (disambiguation).
Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is called a naturalist or natural historian.
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Natural history encompasses scientific research but is not limited to it.[1] It involves the systematic study of any category of natural objects or organisms,[2] so while it dates from studies in the ancient Greco-Roman world and the mediaeval Arabic world, through to European Renaissance naturalists working in near isolation, today's natural history is a cross-discipline umbrella of many specialty sciences; e.g., geobiology has a strong multidisciplinary nature.