Copeia is a quarterly peer-reviewed

Peer review

Peer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...

 scientific journal

Scientific journal

In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. There are thousands of scientific journals in publication, and many more have been published at various points in the past...

 covering research in ichthyology

Ichthyology

Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish. This includes skeletal fish , cartilaginous fish , and jawless fish...

 and herpetology

Herpetology

Herpetology is the branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians and reptiles...

 that was named after Edward Drinker Cope

Edward Drinker Cope

Edward Drinker Cope was an American paleontologist and comparative anatomist, as well as a noted herpetologist and ichthyologist. Born to a wealthy Quaker family, Cope distinguished himself as a child prodigy interested in science; he published his first scientific paper at the age of nineteen...

, a prominent American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 researcher in these fields. It is the official journal of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists

American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists

The American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists is an international organization devoted to the scientific studies of ichthyology and herpetology...

. According to the Journal Citation Reports

Journal Citation Reports

Journal Citation Reports is an annual publication by the Healthcare & Science division of Thomson Reuters. It has been integrated with the Web of Knowledge, by Thomson Reuters, and is accessed from the Web of Science to JCR Web. It provides information about academic journals in the sciences and...

, the journal has a 2010 impact factor

Impact factor

The impact factor, often abbreviated IF, is a measure reflecting the average number of citations to articles published in science and social science journals. It is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field, with journals with higher impact factors deemed...

 of 0.506, ranking it 93rd out of 145 journals in the category "Zoology".

History

On December 27, 1913, John Treadwell Nichols

John Treadwell Nichols

John Treadwell Nichols was an American ichthyologist.-Biography:Nichols was born as son of John White Treadwell Nichols in Jamaica Plain, Boston, Massachusetts. In 1906 he studied vertebrate zoology at Harvard College where he graduated to Bachelor of Arts...

published the first issue of Copeia. This issue consisted of a single piece of paper folded to form four pages of information with five articles. The cover of the pamphlet bore the inscription: "Published by the contributors to advance the science of coldblooded vertebrates."