It is difficult to give you a turn-key solution since we do not know the format of your input data, but perhaps you can get some inspiration from the following: 
use Modern::Perl;

my @two_d_array;
my %dictionary;

sub add_data {
    chomp @_;
    my $type       = shift;
    my $datapoints = shift;
    state $sequence;
    push @two_d_array, [ split ',', $datapoints ];
    $dictionary{$type} = $sequence++;
}

while ( my $species = <DATA> ) {
    my $breaks = <DATA>;
    add_data( $species, $breaks );
}

say "$_:\t@{ @two_d_array[ $dictionary{$_} ] }" for sort keys %diction
+ary;

__DATA__
Chimp
71,22,15,10,51
Dog
91,82,28,11,91
Horse
11,72,37,58,20
Human
21,42,63,24,16
Monkey
81,32,53,54,42
Pig
10,13,99,12,25
Rat
9,17,87,33,11

[download]
The subroutine expects two parameters: the first is the name of the species and the second is the string of datapoints ("breaks" as you call them). It pushes the array_ref of the "breaks" on the @two_d_array and puts the name of the species as a key in the $dictionary hash with value the index of the corresponding "breaks" in the @two_d_array.

As you can see in the output routine (line 20), we walk the $dictionary hash and pull out the corresponding "breaks" from the @two_d_array.

CountZero

A program should be light and agile, its subroutines connected like a string of pearls. The spirit and intent of the program should be retained throughout. There should be neither too little or too much, neither needless loops nor useless variables, neither lack of structure nor overwhelming rigidity." - The Tao of Programming, 4.1 - Geoffrey James

My blog: Imperial Deltronics

In reply to Re^3: 2d array by CountZero
in thread 2d array by jnarayan81

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.