[Taxacom] The University of Alaska Museum (UAM) Insect Collection online

[Derek Sikes]

All,

The University of Alaska Museum (UAM) Insect Collection has recently
completed a migration from a FileMaker database to Arctos, making our data
available online.

Additionally, we've photographed one good specimen of each fully identified
beetle species. Future projects include photography of the Lepidoptera
collection in the same manner and addition of habitat photos for all recent
(>2008) collections.

>From our webpage: http://www.uaf.edu/museum/collections/ento/
"Although a young collection, we have recently surpassed 144,000 cataloged
specimens / lots (as of March 2012). Over 99% of these records have been
georeferenced. Over 75% of the pinned collection has been databased;
approximately 10% of the wet collection has been databased. At least one
specimen of every lowest identification, in both the pinned and wet
collections, has been databased so we have a complete online taxon
inventory of the collection. 61,099 specimens have been identified to the
species level - these represent 2,354 species (23% are apparent new records
for the state)." All georeferenced records can be mapped online via links
to BerkeleyMapper.

This link will take you to all the records with images:

http://arctos.database.museum/go.cfm?id=1543

Arctos has quite flexible search features which add some complexity (I'm
happy to help run specific queries). For example to search on a family
name, enter the name in the search field for Identification and Taxonomy
and select 'Related taxonomy CONTAINS' from the drop down menu before
hitting 'search'.

One very nice feature of the search form

http://arctos.database.museum/uam_ento_all

is the use of 'Select on Google Map' locality search.

There are two 'collections' of data: *UAM Insects* = the specimen data in
the UAM Insect Collection

and

*UAM Ento Observations* = all other Alaskan records, mostly from the
literature, that we've found or been provided. Most of these are not
georeferenced. The Harriman Expedition records and other important historic
works, plus all apparent Alaskan state endemics, have been georeferenced.

We welcome any feedback, errors found, questions, loan requests, etc.

-Derek

-- 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Derek S. Sikes, Curator of Insects
Associate Professor of Entomology
University of Alaska Museum
907 Yukon Drive
Fairbanks, AK   99775-6960

dssikes at alaska.edu
http://users.iab.uaf.edu/~derek_sikes/sikes_lab.htm

phone: 907-474-6278
FAX: 907-474-5469

University of Alaska Museum  -
http://www.uaf.edu/museum/collections/ento/
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Interested in Alaskan Entomology? Join the Alaska Entomological
Society and / or sign up for the email listserv "Alaska Entomological
Network" at
http://www.akentsoc.org/contact.php