The forty-year journey of : advancing with the times.

Since its establishment in 1980, ( ) has walked with many scientists during their academic careers (Yao & Zhang, 2015; Yao et al., 2019). During this joyful holiday season and hopeful new year, we are incredibly pleased to share our wonderful news with all authors, readers, editorial board members, and peer reviewers of . Due to its growing academic influence over the last several years, has attained its highest impact factor to date, reaching 2.638 by the end of 2019 (Q1, 12th/169 SCI journals). Furthermore, its current CiteScore has reached 4.3 (as of December 2020), a nearly 60% increase since 2019. Meanwhile, both the publishing capacity and efficiency of have continued to expand. We are immensely proud of each of our efforts in promoting . Of note, your enduring support and faith have helped drive the sustained growth and advancement of , which continues to evolve as a prominent journal in the zoological field.