Insect@thon Results

[Joris Komen]

Hi Peter

you wrote:

>On Sun, 15 Aug 1999, Joris Komen wrote:
>> I have good news for you:-).  The Insect at thon worked like a bomb!:-)  In
>
>"like a bomb" isn't American English, and would be understood as
>"to bomb" which in American English means to fail. I gather from
>your report that your Insect at thon did not bomb :>)

We were going to say like a cruise missile, but we worried about
international ramifications, especially from Asia:-)
>
>> 20, 897 insect inventory records comprising 11 data fields (catalogue
>> number, order, family, genus, species, collection locality, collector, no.
>> of specimens and day, month year) representing 97, 696 specimens in the
>> National Museum's insect collection.
>
>I don't quite understand what objects were recorded. Are the
>insect specimens individually labelled with unique identifiers
>(e.g., unique numbers or bar codes)? Or, does each computer

catalogue number 22699 representing specimens 1 - 64, numbered 22699.1 to
22699.64 all of the same species collected at one unique locality with a
known longitude and latitude (see our searcheable webtop locality
gazetteer:-)) by one distinctive collector sometime between 1937 and
1989:-), with specific day, month and year information!:-).   How do we
know that these specimens represent one unique taxon?  See our searchable
type specimen webtop database, for examples:-)

>record apply indistinguishably to a series of specimens that
>share common data? I see that "no. of specimens" is one of the
>fields, and I do not see any field for unique (specimen)
>identifiers so obviously the computer record applies
>indistinguishably to a series of insects. But, that's not to say
>that your specimens are not individually numbered. Are they?

Indeed!  See above - I think it explains all your misgivings:-)

>
>Also, how do you manage to keep a series of specimens grouped
>together so that all the data entered applies to as long a series
>of specimens as possible (thus reducing the data entry task as
>much as possible)? E.g., it would seem practical to do data entry

We have catalogues dating back to the start of the collection and, believe
it or not, we do, indeed, have some very orderly collection cabinets here
at the Entomology Department, National Museum of Namibia:-), where we do
keep our species ordered on the basis of solid taxanomy and systematics -
we don't sort by colour and size like they wish to do in Kansas:-)

>on a "collection" of specimens that were all collected at one
>locality by one person on one day, and then at later times, when
>the various specimens are determined (taxonomically and maybe
>even for sex), only those additional data would have to be added.

Huh?  see above:-)  We do have continuous taxonomic, morphological and
ecological revision of our information resources, which, thank G., are now
rapidly being computerized, and hence so much easier to validate!:-)

>To do this later procedure, the specimens would best be
>individually numbered so that their respective numbers are all

See above:-)

>that need be entered into the computer along with the
>determinations, in order to match them up with their
>locality/date/collector data.

Huh?

Cheers

Joris and Eugene @ Insect at thon