Although an incident has very little to do with my reasons for nominating Butterflies and Moths of North America for your Talking Hands Website Award, it does relate. Years ago while doing an internship with an accounting firm and after finishing for the day, a group of us stood on the back porch of the office trying to decide where to eat supper.
The senior accountant uttered the words "why don't we eat..." and a moth flew into his mouth. Everyone laughed so hard, that we decided not to eat out that night.
I do not even vaguely remember what the moth looked like, but decided to look at the data base for the state where the incident happened.
No, I did not find the moth, but did find that the ability to search by taxonomic groups, a map search, species and image gallery, if I had a recollection of the moth, it would have been identified.
Scientists at the USGS Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center and the dedicated work of NPWRC scientists, staff, and contractors has been invaluable to this project.
Over 2,800 species are recorded in this database. The web site is a "work in progress," constantly being updated, and visitors will find that species occurrence information is more complete for some counties, states, and territories than others. Most records are based on museum specimens, authoritative monographs or other publications, or records from recognized experts. Additional families, photos, species accounts, and distribution maps are added as funds and time permit. Distribution maps are currently limited to states of the conterminous United States and Mexico. Data for Alaska, Hawaii, and the Canadian provinces are in preparation.
Reviewer: J. M. C.
Key teaching element: Environmental.
WAI Compliant
Copyright: 1986-2010