|
Post by Adam Cotton on Mar 4, 2015 3:35:58 GMT -8
This Danaiine was only known from 2 females, and our interpid 'Indiana Jones' of the butterfly world has found the male. The paper was just published in Zootaxa, but is not open access.
If anyone wants a copy e-mail me and I can send one for personal use. My address is in my profile.
Adam.
|
|
|
|
Post by exoticimports on Mar 4, 2015 10:17:58 GMT -8
Where (as specific as possible)? tkx.
|
|
|
Post by Adam Cotton on Mar 5, 2015 0:23:50 GMT -8
At the only known locality - the summit of Mount Popomanaseu, Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, July 2013.
Adam.
|
|
|
Post by exoticimports on Mar 5, 2015 6:25:25 GMT -8
Interesting. Hikers have summited other local mountains it's a shame they don't know enough to look for insects.
|
|
|
Post by exoticimports on Mar 5, 2015 9:48:52 GMT -8
Argh, I just read the paper and he referenced "Museum of Natural History, London"
DAMMIT! It's BMNH and always will be!
|
|
|
Post by Adam Cotton on Mar 5, 2015 11:02:13 GMT -8
Yes of course it is BMNH, at least as an acronym, even RIVW (Dick Vane-Wright) insisted I continue to use that rather than NHM. Somehow I think it is officially called the "Natural History Museum, London" rather than "Museum of Natural History, London".
Adam.
|
|
|
|
Post by bobw on Mar 5, 2015 15:17:14 GMT -8
I've spent much of the last few weeks at the Natural History Museum photographing and barcoding specimens, and all their barcode labels start with BMNH(E), which stands for Entomology.
Bob
|
|
|
Post by Adam Cotton on Mar 6, 2015 0:35:34 GMT -8
I assume those labels are actually the BMNH(E) accession number. I seem to remember these were brought in to comply with EU biodiversity laws. When I was there in 2006 these codes were in the process of being added to the specimens as they were curated, but most still didn't have them.
Of course Bob's real point is that they still use the old acronym there.
Adam.
|
|
|
Post by bobw on Mar 6, 2015 3:17:02 GMT -8
They're not actually the accession no. Adam. They're slowly going through the entire collection photographing and adding barcode labels to each specimen. Of course this will be a massive undertaking but they've already completed the British Lepidoptera and as people study the tropical ones they're slowly adding these. I've already done some of the Castniidae and I'll do all the Colias as I recurate them, merging all the collections and adding all the recent accessions. Other people are working on other groups.
Bob
|
|
|
Post by Adam Cotton on Mar 6, 2015 12:03:38 GMT -8
Bob,
Are you saying that every specimen that has one of these BMNH(E) numbers has already been photographed?
I know that Campbell Smith curated the Graphium (Pazala) specimens in 2006 and gave each of them a code number (he was doing it when I was there - Wandsworth of course at that time) but I don't think the specimens were photographed at the same time. Perhaps the ultimate aim is to photograph all of them, and it will be a fantastic research resource.
The only problem I find with studying photos of individual specimens one by one is you lose the feel for a taxon that is sometimes more obvious when looking at a whole draw.
Adam.
|
|
|
Post by Chris Grinter on Mar 6, 2015 15:50:52 GMT -8
Most sites for specimen-level photos can be frustrating just because of that fact, Adam. But as these software programs are developed the ways to browse photos is evolving past basic thumbnails (which is usually possible on any newer database platform). It would be a awesomely powerful tool to have "virtual drawers" comprised of individual photographs that are automatically generated with customized searches. Click on a specimen, zoom in, pull up images of genitalia, characters, undersides, synonyms, literature, etc, etc... Sites like PNW Moths are stepping in the right direction pnwmoths.biol.wwu.edu/photographic-plates/
|
|
|
Post by cabintom on Mar 6, 2015 20:07:20 GMT -8
I just need to say: That is an awesome website.
|
|
|
Post by bobw on Mar 10, 2015 6:04:37 GMT -8
Bob, Are you saying that every specimen that has one of these BMNH(E) numbers has already been photographed? I know that Campbell Smith curated the Graphium (Pazala) specimens in 2006 and gave each of them a code number (he was doing it when I was there - Wandsworth of course at that time) but I don't think the specimens were photographed at the same time. Perhaps the ultimate aim is to photograph all of them, and it will be a fantastic research resource. The only problem I find with studying photos of individual specimens one by one is you lose the feel for a taxon that is sometimes more obvious when looking at a whole draw. Adam. Adam Only the new-style labels with barcodes have definitely been photographed. Yes the aim is to eventually photograph every specimen in the collection although this is obviously a very long-term project. The idea is that the barcode labels will be visible and by reading the barcode with a scanner (or even a mobile phone) photographs of the specimens and labels can be instantly displayed. There should then be no reason to even remove the lids from the drawers. The old numbers (such as Campbell used) will be retained but a barcode label will be added with that number. I believe all complete drawers are also being photographed so if there is software which allows you to drill down from drawer photographs, that would make browsing the collection very easy. Only part of the collection has been recurated and moved to the new drawers so this will be part of that project. Various different people are working on different groups as it really needs an expert in that group to do it properly. I absolutely agree that you need to see a series to really get a feel for the variation within a taxon, and photographs are never a completely satisfactory substitute for seeing the real thing. I know that on several occasions I've struggled to identify specimens from photos that people have sent me, but when I've seen the actual specimen I've immediately known what it is. Bob
|
|
|
Post by Adam Cotton on Mar 10, 2015 6:36:41 GMT -8
Bob,
Thanks for the explanation. I haven't actually seen any labels with barcodes yet, but it sounds like a great project.
Adam.
|
|