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Post by saturniidave on Sept 27, 2011 17:05:41 GMT -8
Do what Chris says above, use Google Earth. I can't afford a GPS myself but I would dearly love one, so I use Google Earth for free, I can get the Lat. Long. co-ordinates and even altitude. I usually give the data to the nearest second whenever possible. As mentioned above things change and a good GPS reference can tell what species were where for future reference. Yes roads move or names get changed, villages disappear as do forests and grasslands, but a GPS reference will guarantee people of the future knew what was there before, they can use it as a mapping tool for previous distribution which can help in conservation schemes.
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Post by lucanidae25 on Sept 27, 2011 17:24:02 GMT -8
I'm still not convinced after that horrible experience with my friend making me taking reading very few maters. I never want to do that ever again.
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Post by timsbugs on Sept 27, 2011 20:38:53 GMT -8
My new camera records the GPS data with every picture and I get an idea of environment too.
I try to get a picture before I catch it, but if not after works too.
Tim
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Post by nomihoudai on Sept 27, 2011 21:56:11 GMT -8
@ lucanidae25, get a waterproof GPS, I never had problems with mine so far and I never heard of problems with it from somebody else that goes much deeper in the forests of Asia than I ever did. pennswoods: 1. Your argument is invalid, do you even understand that you have on the one hand the GPS device that is simply used to get coordinates and on the other hands the information in the string of number which simply is latitude longitude used since hundreds of years? If GPS will not work I couldn't care less, I take my numbers and I quickly calculate the spot on a map...if you don't understand how that works better let your fingers from it. 2. Your wording of "a string of numbers" really makes me wonder if you understand how these numbers work... Even without my GPS device on I can tell you how far appart the two spots on jshueys spots are, I won't calculate it now as I need to go to work.
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Post by bobw on Sept 28, 2011 1:06:46 GMT -8
Lucanidae25 - no reasonable person would suggest you take a reading every few metres, one reading to cover a single collecting locality is quite sufficient as long as it's not too big. Bugs caught 100 metres apart are still going to be part of the same colony as long as there's no significant change in geology, topography or vegetation.
Chris' post fairly neatly sums up the importance of GPS data. I've spent much of the last 10 years trying to pinpoint type localities, most of which are for taxa described in the 19th century. Many of these were caught by the first Europeans to visit the area so any local place names are lost in the depths of time. There are also frequently many settlements (usually descriptive) with the same name in an area, and place names were tranliterated from different alphabets in many different ways. This has involved a lot of detective work, mainly by hunting down travel diaries (thank god most people wrote diaries in those days), getting them translated, and looking for clues as to where they were on dates matching data labels. If the data is insufficient this is not possible. However, if these people had had GPS, or even given co-ordinates from a map, we would know more or less exactly where the type localities are.
Bob
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Post by lucanidae25 on Sept 28, 2011 1:48:44 GMT -8
There's one other big reason I don't like putting GPS data but I don't want to talk about it here. By having latitude or longitude, it's really hard to disprove if you are in area that you're not supposed to be in but by putting the nearest town, as least you won't get yourself into trouble.
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Post by Chris Grinter on Sept 28, 2011 2:18:46 GMT -8
Haha, yes, if for some reason your GPS unit turned you into an honest collector than it sure would make poaching hard.
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Post by timoinsects on Sept 28, 2011 14:50:49 GMT -8
wellwell,a perfect data also included: envirment(what kind of forest,or desert,or grassland) host plants(was caught on what flowers,or tree bottom or trunk,branchs,bushes,grass etc.) weather condition, temputure, time of a day (Carabus more occur from nightfall to morning,Cetonidae more occur in around middle day,the hotest time of a day) by light trap or not( light trap is a very important method!!many were caught by this way,but cetonidae do not go to light trap,there're differences),or other traps etc. as much as possible to describ a photo in your brain,vivid. you will be crazy if finlish all thouse. ;D however for a few VIP species,try to finlish the necessary datas is ok.
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Post by pennswoods on Sept 28, 2011 16:14:43 GMT -8
pennswoods: 1. Your argument is invalid, do you even understand that you have on the one hand the GPS device that is simply used to get coordinates and on the other hands the information in the string of number which simply is latitude longitude used since hundreds of years? If GPS will not work I couldn't care less, I take my numbers and I quickly calculate the spot on a map...if you don't understand how that works better let your fingers from it. 2. Your wording of "a string of numbers" really makes me wonder if you understand how these numbers work... Even without my GPS device on I can tell you how far appart the two spots on jshueys spots are, I won't calculate it now as I need to go to work. ;D yes I'm fairly certain I understand how these numbers work. I've been trained and spent years navigating all over this planet using Lat/Long data, celestial, GPS, maps and compass, and several other methods you wouldn't even believe. For purely "scientific" research collecting, the more data provided the better. In fact it reaches a point where the insect itself becomes just another datum point and to me that's where the fun and enjoyment of collecting ends. So, I was talking to an old collecting buddy the other day and I said "Hey do you remember when we collected those great Lycaenids and Nymphalids up by 63*13'27.83"N 143*03'06.39"W ?" Of course not! Approximately 7 Billion people's minds DON'T work that way! I said "up by Eagle Trail south of Tok Alaska" and that's what brings up the memories- not so much as scribbling down the coordinates then trying to match them up on a computer map. For me and most folks I have met, the enjoyment of collecting isn't purely about the data. It's about being out in the field with friends or alone, the sweat, the cold, the hard work, the excitement of a good find, the bears, breaking out a fishing rod when collecting is slow, and then in the end looking at a nicely curated dead bug in a box and being able to relive all those memories. While I'm still young enough to have my faculties, I can look at my locality data on a tag and go back to Google Earth on some winter night and get the exact coordinates if I'm so inclined. Most of the time I won't worry about it. I don't have any fantasy that my modest collection of insects from all over the world will end up 100 years from now with some researcher saying "Damn!! I wish this lazy bastard would have included a third place past the decimal in his location data!" There are about a handful of specimens in my collection which are important enough to have extremely detailed data (these are a significant range extension of a sphingid, State Record of resident population of an Arctiid, possible natural hybridization of a Saturnid, and an apparent genetic or climatic induced anomaly of another Saturnid) and they do have it. Nomihoudai, you have got your panties in entirely too much of a knot about this, my friend.
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Post by nomihoudai on Sept 29, 2011 8:50:23 GMT -8
Lol, took me 5 minutes now to find that expression "you have got your panties in entirely too much of a knot about this".
I'm not upset about it, I just like discussing and I really wondered how you could go about speaking about GPS by calling it "just a string of numbers" and come up with the argument of the Old ones that have worked without despite you fully understanding how it works (I do believe you ).
The new argument about "Hey do you remember when we collected those great Lycaenids and Nymphalids up by 63*13'27.83"N 143*03'06.39"W ?" now takes the discussion to a silly level. Nobody here ever argued you should only take the coords but always together with a name tag you can find on a map. If I speak with my friends about our last trips I of course tell them the names of the closest villages or the mountain and not the bloody coords.
The coords are for working scientifically on the lab on your stuff and take it to a new level of precision and knowledge.
If you only collect for the sake of collecting it is fine, but I like both ways, collecting for the sake of collecting and collecting for the work in the lab and I would be very grateful if you and others would like to do the work of adding coords in order to make the lab work easier and faster.
Thanks, Claude
(p.S.: Taking the above example, I do have specimen from Arizona telling me what canyon they are from but I have no clue where those canyons are unless I type the coords into my google earth. )
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Post by wollastoni on Sept 29, 2011 9:19:25 GMT -8
I don't put GPS data but I should ! I will give you an example with Papua.
1/ Many tribal villages change of names or even disappear due to tribal or environmental reasons.
2/ Sometimes as foreigners, you do not understand clearly the village names. I have some specimens labelled "Kilise" and my friends labelled theirs "Kelesi".
3/ Some village have different names in West Papua : Jiwika and Kurulu are the same village (Jiwika is an Indonesian name and Kurulu a Dani name). Same thing with rivers, I know one with 3 names in Pass Valley...
So when you work a lot on Papuan stuff, it is sometimes a real nightmare to try and understand where a specimen really comes from.
So yes I should add GPS.
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Post by jshuey on Sept 29, 2011 11:04:43 GMT -8
jshuey The Lucanidae in your pic is Macrocrates australis and it's a hill top sp, so all you have to do is go to the general area and find a hill top. You will find them sitting on vegetation on the very top of the Mt during the day. I still can't see the differences between: 25 53' 06"S, 48 57' 46"W and 25 54' 18"S, 49 00' 49"W. They are all just numbers to me. I think you just made my point. Local collectors assure me that these beetles are pretty much on the one hill top and not the others in the near vicinity (the other lat/long is a hill you can drive to - but no beetles) Including GPS data really does help people figure out where the bugs were really taken. But like all things, you have to use your brain. Recording GPS data every few meters is a waste of time. But I group my field collections in units that make sense - that may mean once ever km or so as you wind down a trail. Or in tha case of mountains in southern Brasil, by readings that correspond to changes in habitat types. shuey
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Post by politula on Oct 2, 2011 5:31:15 GMT -8
Although I have a GPS I only include this data on the label half the time. To find "hot spots" for the Carabidae I study I set hundreds of traps. Most will fail but in time I usually find what I'm after. But adding the exact spot on my specimens is like giving my hard work away. It will direct someone to where my traps may be and who knows how vigorously those sites might get collected, will there be anything left when I return? I find most collectors are pretty lazy and would rather have a hand-held direct them to an exact spot rather than do their own legwork. I keep the GPS data in my field notes so it does not get lost.
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Post by prillbug2 on Oct 2, 2011 5:50:34 GMT -8
It's very important to me. If you don't want to use GPS, then get a geological map and record the map coordinates for that area. In fact, before I ever had GPS, that's all that I ever did, use map coordinates, for everything I collected, and I don't think that I'm giving away all of my locations, because it's scientific data. Jeff Prill
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Post by Adam Cotton on Oct 2, 2011 11:38:31 GMT -8
Surely you are only giving away your localities if you publish the exact co-ordinates? No-one is going to see them on the labels in your collection unless you let them look, and even then they probably won't have a notebook in hand to jot down the co-ordinates of each specimen.
Adam.
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