Biodiversity Heritage Library - Program news and collection highlights from BHL
Blog Reel, User Stories

The Case of the Mistaken Manakin

Since the end of the twentieth century, the genus name Dixiphia has been associated with the white-crowned manakin. A recent investigation, made possible in part thanks to BHL, demonstrated that Dixiphia did not refer to a manakin at all, but was in fact a junior synonym of the white-headed marsh tyrant (genus Arundinicola).

The white-crowned manakin was in need of its own, new genus-group name.

The manakin mystery was first discovered by researchers Guilherme Renzo Rocha Brito and Guy M. Kirwan. Following the publication of a book on Cotingas and Manakins, Brito and Kirwan received an inquiry from James A. Jobling about the absence of any mention in the publication of modified wing feathers in the white-crowned manakin (then called Dixiphia pipra), which were so clearly displayed in Reichenbach’s (1850) Dixiphia illustration. Brito and Kirwan were perplexed by the inquiry, because not only does Reichenbach’s illustration show a bird with an all-white head (which the white-crowned manakin does not have), but the white-crowned manakin also does not have modified wing feathers.

The genus name Dixiphia was first published by Reichenbach in 1850. In 1992, Richard O. Prum assigned the white-headed manakin to the Dixiphia genus after demonstrating that it had long been erroneously attributed to the Pipra genus.

After examining Reichenbach’s illustration following the inquiry regarding modified wing feathers, Brito and Kirwan came to the conclusion that Reichenbach’s illustration was actually that of the white-headed marsh tyrant (Arundinicola leucocephala). They examined specimens in the Museum Nacional’s ornithological collection as well as descriptions in historic publications, many made available to them thanks to the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

All of this research culminated in the conclusion that Reichenbach’s illustration was indeed of the white-headed march tyrant, that Dixiphia was actually a junior synonym of Arundinicola (a fact that had first been suggested over a century ago), and that a new genus-group name for the white-crowned manakin was needed.

Brito and Kirwan, along with co-authors Normand David, Steven M.S. Gregory, James A. Jobling, and Frank D. Steinheimer, summarized this research and proposed a new genus name, Pseudopipra, for the white-crowned manakin in the 2016 Zootaxa article “The mistaken manakin: a new genus-group name for Parus pipra Linnaeus, 1758(Aves: Passeriformes: Pipridae)“.

Guilherme R.R. Brito, a substitute professor at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, is quick to emphasize the role that BHL played in solving this taxonomic mystery – a role that is also highlighted in the acknowledgments section of the Zootaxa article.

“BHL is one of the most important databases for several [subject] areas within the biological sciences,” lauds Brito. “For historical taxonomic purposes, it’s now essential.”

Brito, who has been studying bird anatomy, natural history, taxonomy, and systematics for fifteen years, first discovered BHL shortly after the online portal launched nearly a decade ago. Since then, he has used BHL to access many important and historical publications that were previously very difficult to obtain in Brazil.

“Thanks to BHL, several very rare works are now readily available to any researcher in the world,” explains Brito. “I remember not so long ago that we researchers in Brazil had to wait for colleagues to visit museums and institutions abroad to ask them for some copies of works not available here. These were more difficult times.”

The digital open access provided by the Biodiversity Heritage Library allows scientists to easily access the information they need to study life on Earth and solve taxonomic enigmas like the Dixiphia mystery. No doubt Pseudopipra pipra is grateful to have a name to call its own.

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This post may contain the personal opinions of BHL users or affiliated staff and does not necessarily represent the official Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) position on these matters.
October 13, 2016by michelle.underhill
BHL News, Blog Reel, User Stories

Rod Page Talks Bioinformatics, Linked Data, and Primary Literature at the Smithsonian
Portrait version of the Biodiversity Heritage Library logo.

On 22 September, Dr. Rod Page, Professor at the University of Glasgow and creator of BioStor, gave a presentation at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History Library about ideas for extracting and linking data across biodiversity repositories and primary literature.

The talk, entitled “The Sam Adams Talk,” covered topics including phylogenetics, geophylogeny visualizations, linking article and specimen data across repositories, annotations, the biodiversity knowledge graph, and data as source code. A lively Q&A; session between Rod and the audience followed the presentation.

You can view a recording of the presentation on YouTube.

Rod’s talk at the Smithsonian followed the Scientific Collections International Food Security Symposium at the National Agricultural Library, 19-21 September. At the invitation of BHL, Rod gave a presentation at the symposium about using publication data to support food security research. You can view Rod’s Food Security Symposium presentation, entitled “Unknown Knowns, Long Tails, and Long Data“, on his Slideshare.

Visit Rod’s blog iPhylo and follow him on Twitter at @rdmpage to see more of his thoughts on bioinformatics, linked data, and primary literature.

September 29, 2016by ulib-libraryjobs
Blog Reel, Featured Books

Catesby’s Magnificent Natural History, In Three Editions

In May of 1729, the first part of the first fully illustrated book on the flora and fauna of North America was presented to the Royal Society. Upon the conclusion of the work, Royal Society Secretary Cromwell Mortimer praised it as “the most magnificent Work I know of, since the Art of Printing has been discovered” (Nelson and Elliott, 165).

The work was The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands, and all told it was issued in eleven parts (including an appendix) over an eighteen year period (from 1729-1747). It included 220 plates and accompanying pages of text, a map and account of North America, two indices, a preface, a dedication, and a list of subscribers.

The author of the work was Mark Catesby.

An expansive account of Catesby’s life and work is captured in The Curious Mister Catesby, edited by E. Charles Nelson and David J. Elliott, which received the 2016 CBHL (The Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries) Annual Literature Award for Overall Significant Contribution to the Literature of Botany or Horticulture. This work allows us to appreciate the extent of Catesby’s contribution to the study of North American biodiversity.

Mark Catesby was born on 24 March 1682/83 in England (probably in Castle Hedingham, Essex), the (probably) fifth son of John Catesby, a gentleman who became mayor of Sudbury in 1673. When John died in 1703, Mark received a substantial inheritance that included property in Sudbury and London, providing him with a level of security that would allow him to pursue his interest in natural history (Nelson and Elliott, 3-4, hereafter referred to as “N&E;”).

Catesby first set foot in North America in 1712. Serving as chaperone for his sister Elizabeth, whose husband Dr. William Cocke had arrived in Virginia some two years earlier, Catesby was hosted principally by prominent Virginian citizen William Byrd II during this first visit. Shortly after his arrival, Catesby began collecting plants, specimens of which he sent across the Atlantic to Samuel Dale and Dr. Henry Compton (Bishop of London). During these first several years in America, Catesby also visited Jamaica, Bermuda, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico (N&E;, 8).

Catesby returned to England in 1719, possibly in response to his brother’s death two years earlier (N&E;, 9). He was, however, determined to return to North America and continue his study of the land’s rich flora and fauna. In 1722, he got his wish. This time, his trip was sponsored by members of the Royal Society, who hoped that he would collect specimens from and generally enhance natural history knowledge about this New World. From 1722-early 1725, Catesby explored and collected in South Carolina. The following year, from 1725-26, Catesby ventured to the Bahamas to continue his research (N&E;, 12-13).

During his time in America, Catesby not only collected specimens, many of which he sent back to England, but he also produced sketches and watercolors of the species he encountered. According to Henrietta McBurney, who wrote a chapter for The Curious Mister Catesby on Mark’s preparatory drawings for Natural History, the challenges of transporting the necessary art equipment into the field probably meant that Catesby made field drawings in pen and ink while traveling through the country and then worked up folio-sized watercolors, which would later be translated to etched plates for his publication, back at his lodgings (N&E;, 143). At all times, Catesby placed great emphasis on portraying each species in as life-like a manner as possible, working from live animals when possible and obtaining fresh supplies of specimens, like fish, whose color and appearance change rapidly after death (N&E;, 145).

In 1726, Catesby left the Bahamas and returned to England with the intention of publishing his accounts and illustrations in “a large folio on a grand, almost unprecedented scale” (N&E;, 155). Leslie K. Overstreet, Curator of Natural History Rare Books at the Smithsonian Libraries, provides an extensive examination of Catesby’s publication within the twelfth chapter of The Curious Mister Catesby.

According to Ms. Overstreet, Catesby opted to print the work at his own expense. Fortunately, his friend Peter Collinson, a Quaker merchant and Fellow of the Royal Society, agreed to lend Catesby funds to support the publication. These funds were not sufficient to cover the cost of expert engravers, so Catesby hired professional artist Joseph Goupy to teach him how to etch so that Catesby could work up the plates for his publication himself (N&E;, 155).

In order to ensure that enough copies of the work would be sold to justify the cost of its production, Catesby solicited subscribers for Natural History. He distributed a prospectus instructing people who wished to obtain a copy of the work to sign up as subscribers (N&E;, 156). The prospectus indicated that he intended to publish the book in parts of 20 plates and accompanying text issued every four months. Subscribers could elect to receive colored plates for two guineas a part or uncolored plates for one guinea per part (N&E;, 159). The prospectus also directed potential subscribers to view his original artwork, which would be featured in the publication, at Thomas Fairchild’s nursery in Hoxton (N&E;, 147).

All told, Catesby’s final version of the “List of the Encouragers” (a list of the work’s subscribers, which, as was customary at this time, are listed within the publication) includes 155 names (N&E;, 159).

Assured that the book would sell, Catesby set about producing the publication, which included not only etching the copper plates and writing the text, but also hand-coloring (maybe not all) the prints as well (N&E;, 158).  Catesby also enlisted a friend, who requested to remain unnamed, to translate the text into French. The final publication included a column of English text alongside a column of French text (N&E;, 13).

For the plates, Catesby used his own watercolors and also borrowed and included illustrations from other artists. For example, Catesby’s depiction of the southern flying squirrel in plate 76 was borrowed from Dutch artist Everhard Kick (N&E;, 150-151). Artists Georg Dionysius Ehret and George Edwards also contributed drawings to the work (N&E;, 152-153).

Due to the amount of work required for the publication, Catesby was not able to adhere to his one part every four months plan. However, he continued to steadily produce new parts, which were sent to his subscribers. The first four parts of the work were issued in numerous typesettings, as Catesby was apparently cautious about ordering too many copies of each part (many subscribers signed up over the life of the publication, so Catesby was not working with a fixed number of “Encouragers”), which in turn required him to order additional copies of the early parts as new subscribers signed on. By the fifth part, however, we see only one typesetting, indicating that Catesby was confident enough in his sales that he ordered sufficient quantities to meet demand (N&E;, 160-163).

In 1743, the last part of volume 2 was presented to the Royal Society. Four years later, in 1747, the appendix, consisting of an additional twenty plates and text, was presented, bringing the first edition to completion (N&E;, 158). Approximately 180-200 copies were produced, only about 100 of which survive. There are only a few known perfect copies of this first edition, and of these, only the Smithsonian Libraries’ copy (which is freely available in BHL) contains “all three pieces of ephemera relating to the production of the work” (N&E;, 165).

A second edition of Natural History was produced by George Edwards in 1754, five years after Catesby’s death in 1749. This edition is identical to the first, and many copies even include leftover printed sheets from the first edition. The plates for the 2nd edition were produced using Catesby’s original copper plates, but the coloring tends to be brighter than those completed by Catesby himself (N&E;, 166-168). The 2nd edition is freely available in BHL thanks to the Missouri Botanical Garden.

A 3rd edition was published in 1771 by bookseller Benjamin White. This edition is made up of completely reset text and the Linnaean binomials have been added where available. While the edition did use Catesby’s original copper plates, the plates from the 3rd edition are significantly more brightly colored than those of the first edition (N&E;, 168-169). The 3rd edition is freely available in BHL thanks to the University Library at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

 

All of the plates from all three editions are available in the BHL Flickr. Thanks to BHL citizen scientist Michelle Marshall (also the curator of BHL’s Instagram), all plates from all editions have been tagged with the common, given and currently accepted scientific names for each species. The Curious Mister Catesby, which includes a species list by James L. Reveal in the book’s appendix (N&E;, 331-341), was used to verify the current accepted name for each species. This not only allows you to search Catesby’s illustrations by taxonomic name, but it also allows us to compare the differences in the illustrations across editions. To compare illustrations across editions, search BHL’s Flickr photostream by BHLCatesby AND “[scientific name]”, inserting the scientific name of a species depicted by Catesby in the brackets where indicated.

View Full Size Image

Catesby’s work, and particularly his illustrations, are significant for a variety of reasons. As the first fully illustrated book on the flora and fauna of North America, this book was the first introduction for many Europeans to much of the biodiversity of the New World. Beyond this, Catesby’s work was a significant resource for Carl Linnaeus, whose binomial system for naming plants (which he introduced in print with his Species Plantarum in 1753) and animals (applied in his Systema Naturae, 1758) is still used today (N&E;, 189).

Linnaeus cited Catesby extensively in Species Plantarum and Systema Naturae, showing that Natural History enhanced Linnaeus’ understanding of many species. 131 of the 187 plants depicted by Catesby were cited by Linnaeus in Species Plantarum (N&E;, 201). Additionally, Linnaeus referenced Catesby 139 times in Systema Naturae (N&E;, 254-255). For some of these references, Catesby was the sole source of information for Linnaeus on a given species, and Catesby’s illustrations serve as the type for several of Linnaeus’ species names. In Species Plantarum, for example, 17 of Linnaeus’ species entries cite only Catesby, while Catesby’s plates serve as the type for 34 of the species in that work (N&E;, 201). For 52 of the species entries in Systema Naturae, Catesby was Linnaeus’ only reference (N&E;, 255).

The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands represents a milestone in the cultivation of natural history knowledge. We are indebted to this “ingenious” naturalist Mark Catesby who dedicated his life to capturing and describing the biodiverse wonders of the New World. What a wondrously beautiful and curious world we live in.

REFERENCE 
Nelson, E C, and David J. Elliott. The Curious Mister Catesby: A “truly Ingenious” Naturalist Explores New Worlds., 2015. Print.

September 1, 2016by ulib-libraryjobs
Blog Reel, User Stories

Unravelling the secrets of Australian native bees

Australia has over 1,600 species of native bees. As a young university student in 1979, I was keen to learn all I could about these diverse species. However, I soon found that the original descriptions of many of these bees were in obscure books and journals dating from the late 1700s to the early 1900s, only available in specialised research libraries. Unravelling the secrets of Australian native bees would prove to be a challenge!

When naturalist Joseph Banks arrived in Australia in 1770 with the first British expedition, he found an astounding new world of undescribed species. Amongst the hundreds of specimens that he collected were a blue-banded bee, a resin bee, a carpenter bee and a wasp-mimic bee. Five years later the Danish entomologist Johan Christian Fabricius included descriptions of these four bees in his 1775 tome, Systema entomologiae. These were the first recorded descriptions of Australian native bees. You might say that Systema entomologiae was the first field guide to Australian native bees!

To study Systema entomologiae back in my early career, I had to visit the research library of the Australian Museum. This is rare book so it was gingerly placed on a cushion, and I had to handle it with gloves. Photocopying was forbidden, and I had to laboriously copy down the Latin descriptions using pencil and paper. Now, thanks to BHL, I can view Systema entomologiae on my home computer and have downloaded a copy for detailed study (REF 1).

As the young Australian nation developed, most of the research on our bees was done by scientists from overseas. In 1854, British entomologist, Frederick Smith, described our first stingless bee species, Tetragonula carbonaria (originally in the genus Trigona), from a specimen deposited in the British Museum. He simply recorded the collection locality of this bee as ‘Australia’. Smith’s description can be studied in BHL (REF 2).

Then in 1863, Smith examined a nest that had been brought all the way to England and exhibited to the Entomological Society of London. His description, in the Transactions of that society, now archived by BHL, was possibly the first published account of the nest of this species (REF 3).

In 1898, German entomologist, Heinrich Friese, published descriptions of four more stingless bee species from Australia and New Guinea, including the first Austroplebeia species. His paper in Természetrajzi Füzetek is now available from BHL (REF 4).

In the early 1900s, the American zoologist, Theodore Cockerell, described hundreds of Australian native bee species, including six species of stingless bees. Then finally in the 1930s, Tarlton Rayment, an Australian naturalist, wrote numerous illustrated articles about our native bees. Many of the works of Cockerell and Rayment have also been archived by BHL.

Australia’s Tetragonula and Austroplebeia stingless bee species quickly became my special interest. These charming bees were being kept in logs and hives across the continent, they make delicious tangy honey called Sugarbag, and their value as crop pollinators was being explored. Despite their popularity and economic value, their taxonomy was in urgent need of revision. The number of Australian species was unknown and the existing species descriptions were grossly inadequate. My husband, Les, and I decided to try to identify and describe all of the Australian stingless bee species. Little did we realise that it would take us 36 years to achieve this goal!

Fifteen species names had already been given to our Australian stingless bees by early entomologists. To assess the validity of these names, first we needed to study the type descriptions of these species. Unfortunately, we started this project long before the existence of BHL, and we were obliged to search for these old papers in museum and university libraries – a daunting task. Then began the field work! Les and I set out on expeditions to the most remote parts of Australia and searched for stingless bees in each of the known localities where they had been described.

With the help of Japanese expert, Professor Shôichi Sakagami, we published our revision of the Tetragonula stingless bees in 1997 [REF 5]. The Austroplebeia, however, proved to be far harder to classify. At last, with the help of collaborative studies with the University of Western Sydney, the species groups became clearer. We then performed a three year, in-depth analysis of our entire Austroplebeia collection and published our Austroplebeia stingless bee revision with Dr Claus Rasmussen in 2015 [REF 6].  For a colourful look at our findings, including stories from our outback expeditions, read ‘Meet the Austroplebeia species’, article 25 in Aussie Bee Online on Aussie Bee website [REF 7].

BHL provided valuable assistance with our recent Austroplebeia revision. One of the most challenging tasks was matching the original type specimen of each described species with our recently collected materials. To do this, it was important to find out where each type specimen had been collected. For some type specimens the collection localities were quite vague. For instance, the recorded locality for the A. australis type was ‘Central Australia’, a huge area covering hundreds of square kilometres. So we searched exhaustively for clues in other old texts from the time, such as the 1891 account by Reverend Louis Schulze on Aboriginals of the Finke River area of Central Australia, archived by BHL [REF 8].  We concluded that the A. australis type was probably collected near the Central Australian Aboriginal mission of Hermannsburg.

The anatomical terminology required for the revision paper was another substantial challenge. I had to compile my own specialised glossary of stingless bee anatomical terms so that I could understand the technical descriptions of the early papers and correctly prepare revised descriptions. BHL provided valuable reference material for this task, including William Kirby’s 1826 glossary of anatomical terms [REF 9].

I am an independent self-funded researcher located over 80km from the nearest major research library that holds archival material of this type. Being able to browse, study and download these publications on my own computer in my research centre whenever I needed them, rather than travel long distances to a library, greatly facilitated my work.

In addition to our taxonomic work, Les and I have also created Aussie Bee, Australia’s largest website on native bees. The photographs, videos and articles presented on Aussie Bee showcase Australian native bees and help raise public awareness of these vital pollinators. The stories of early exploration and discovery connected with our Australian native bees help engage and maintain public interest in these species. We thank BHL for the fascinating material that we have found in their archives so far and look forward to exploring BHL’s archives further as we continue to unravel the secrets of Australian native bees.

REFERENCES

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This post may contain the personal opinions of BHL users or affiliated staff and does not necessarily represent the official Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) position on these matters.

July 14, 2016by ulib-libraryjobs
Blog Reel, User Stories

Resolving a 180 Year Old Taxonomic Mystery

Hardwicke’s bloodsucker is an agamid lizard found in western and central India. It is a small, stocky, and pot-bellied lizard with a short tail that is currently recognized under the scientific name Brachysaura minor. This species, however, has a rather convoluted taxonomic history.

The first scientific description of the species comes from Hardwicke and Gray in 1827 and is based on a color sketch by Hardwicke which now resides in the Archives of the Natural History Museum, London.  They named the species Agama minor. Later, in 1856, Blyth provided a new name and description for what was likely the same species, calling it Brachysaura ornata. He did not refer to Hardwicke and Gray’s previous description. Over the years, the description, name and placement of the species was questioned by many, and it has subsequently been placed in the additional genera Charasia and Laudakia as well.

In 1999, Manthey and Schuster placed the species back within the genus Brachysaura, and it has since be most commonly referred to as Brachysaura minor – the only species within the Brachysaura genus.

A recent study has called this placement into question. Using molecular and morphological data, V. Deepak, Raju Vyas, Varad B. Giri, and K. Praveen Karanth analyzed the identity and systematic position of Brachysaura minor. Their results, published in the paper “A Taxonomic Mystery for More than 180 Years: The Identity and Systematic Position of Brachysaura minor (Hardwicke and Gray, 1827)” (Vertebrate Zoology. 65(3): 371-381), suggest that Brachysaura is actually nested within the genus Calotes, and that the species should henceforth be referred as Calotes minor. They also note that one of the previous primary impediments to placing this species within the Calotes genus is the fact that, compared to other members of the genus, this species has a very short tail. However, the researchers note that, unlike other members of this genus, this species is ground-dwelling, and in other ground-dwelling agamids, reduced tail length is a common characteristic. Thus, the authors propose that the length of the tail is an adaptation related to the species’ habitat and not a justification for placement in a new genus. Not only does the paper propose a new placement for Brachysaura minor, but by re-evaluating other specimens that were previously believed to be representatives of this species, the authors also suggest that members of Agaminae are limited to a distribution in arid regions of Western India.

According to co-author Dr. Varad B. Giri, a Post Doctoral Fellow at the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, India, this paper would not have been possible without the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

Varad has been studying the taxonomy of Indian reptiles and amphibians since 2000. While exploring records in the Reptile Database, he discovered links to literature in BHL and was introduced to our open access digital library. The discovery had profound effects on his work.

“For a taxonomist like me, BHL is an amazing resource. One of the vital things of taxonomy is to understand the morphological characters of known species. With this knowledge, one can do a proper diagnosis of the species known or hitherto unknown to science. One way to do this is by referring to the type specimens, but most of the types of Indian amphibians and reptiles are in museums abroad and thus are difficult to access. The other way is to refer to the original descriptions, which were again inaccessible as they were published in old journals. BHL has made this latter thing possible by putting all of the historical literature online where one can access it with ease. I strongly feel that if BHL would not have been available, I would not have performed good taxonomic work with such ease due to a lack of historical literature. BHL has a big positive impact on my research.”

When he is working on a paper, Varad uses BHL several times a day. He usually downloads relevant papers using BHL’s custom PDF service, which allows him to select precisely the pages he wishes to save. This feature is one of his favorites on BHL. When appropriate, Varad will also download entire books as PDFs and, having now been exposed to the many illustrations available from BHL through his interaction with BHL staff, he also plans to download relevant images in the future.

While the ability to perform full-text search is a feature that Varad would like to see added to BHL, he notes that BHL’s general search is quite effective and has in fact exposed him to many relevant items that he was previously unaware of.

While BHL’s many value-add features make Varad’s experience with our library all the more positive, the most important thing that BHL provides him with is access to the literature that he needs to conduct his research. Research like the taxonomic placement of Brachysaura minor (or should we say Calotes minor?).

“BHL is doing a wonderful service for researchers like me, who work with limited resources in developing countries like India. For our recent paper dealing with a 180 year old taxonomic mystery, we needed to refer to many historical articles. Without the help of BHL, this would have taken more time or been very difficult. There are many such publications pertaining to Indian amphibians and reptiles where we will need BHL!”

We are certainly thrilled to hear about the lasting and ongoing impact that BHL will have on Varad’s research and his investigation into taxonomic mysteries. For, after all, as Varad told us, “To properly solve the mystery, one has to clearly understand the history.” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves!

Do you use BHL to support your work? Want to be featured on our blog? Write us at [email protected]!

February 11, 2016by michelle.underhill
Blog Reel, User Stories

The scientific and historical importance of small, old collections

In 1838, Ferdinand Joseph L’Herminier, a French botanist and zoologist born in Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe, published the first description of the Double-striped Thick-knee (vocifer), today known by the scientific name Burhinus bistriatus vocifer [1]. L’Herminier used six specimens to describe the species, which he originally named Ædicnemus vocifer.

One of the specimens that L’Herminier used for his description is housed in the Baillon Collection at the Musée George Sand et de la Vallée Noire, La Châtre, France. The Baillon’s inscription for the specimen indicates that it was sent by Florent Prévost, assistant naturalist at the Paris Museum, to Louis Antoine François Baillon, whose father started the Baillon Collection. The available information indicated that Prévost received the specimen from L’Herminier himself, but it was unknown who originally provided the specimen to L’Herminier. This question becomes even more intriguing when you consider that the Baillon specimen is the only surviving type specimen of the six originally used by L’Herminier for his 1838 description.

Christophe Gouraud is an expert at solving the mysteries surrounding historic specimens. With a Masters degree in ecology and a specialty in ornithology, Gouraud spends much of his time working as a Polar guide on expedition ships that cruise in Spitsbergen, Greenland, Nunavut, the Russian Arctic, the South Atlantic islands and Antarctica, but before becoming a guide, he took part in many scientific expeditions related with birds in Alaska, Morocco, Kazakhstan, and Peru. Today, he still finds time to pursue his ornithological passion. Between the Arctic and Antarctic seasons, he works with bird collections in France, particularly within the Caire-Chabrand Collection at the Musée de la Vallée, Barcelonnette, France, and the Baillon Collection of La Châtre.

Discovering information about historic specimens can be a difficult task. Access to historic literature is essential to successful investigations, and thus, Gouraud has found BHL an invaluable ally in his hunt for information.

“BHL is such a great, impressive and useful tool,” lauds Gouraud. “As I am not working in an institution with access to huge libraries, BHL has made possible what I have achieved so far. I don’t know if my work would have been possible without BHL, but for sure it is unbelievable the time that can be saved.”

Gouraud uses BHL to search for the original descriptions of bird species (most of which were described in the 18th and 19th centuries), to locate accounts of early voyages of exploration and discovery (during which many of the specimens he researchers were collected), and to explore references cited by the authors of the publications he consults for his research. When working on the history of a collection, he consults BHL daily, exploring multiple documents during each visit.

“In a few clicks, you can access, read and download (for free!!!) most of the documents you need,” exclaims Gouraud. “All that is needed is a good Internet connection. Through BHL, I can easily access so many old and rare books deposited in just a few institutions worldwide while simply sitting at home drinking a good coffee!”

Gouraud’s favorite BHL feature is the custom PDF download, which allows him to select specific pages of interest for his research and save them for future consultation. His extensive use of the library also revealed some areas where he believes improvements can be made. These include adding a full text search option to BHL, allowing users to search within the contents of a book; improving the OCR, allowing more scientific names to be discovered; and merging the redundant author and title names sometimes displayed throughout BHL.

Full text search is a high priority for future BHL development, with prototypes currently being investigated. BHL crowdsourcing games, Smorball and Beanstalk, are one method we are currently using to improve BHL’s OCR. Multiple instances of the same author or title in BHL result from differences in the library catalogs contributing information to BHL. While we try to automatically de-duplicate entries as they are ingested, not all duplicates can be merged automatically. We rely on feedback from our users to help us identify and allow us to correct duplications that do occur. Use our feedback form to alert us of any errors that should be corrected in the BHL portal.

BHL allowed Gouraud to solve the mystery of the origin of the Double-striped Thick-knee specimen housed in the Baillon Collection. By consulting L’Herminier’s original description in BHL, Gouraud discovered that the specimen was originally collected by Doctor Louis Daniel Beauperthuy, a physician and scientist born in Basse Terre, Guadeloupe, and the discoverer of the transmitting agent of yellow fever. Beauperthuy gave the specimen to L’Herminier, who used it for his description and then sent it on to the Paris Museum.

“I completed the story and linked Dr. Beauperthuy to L’Herminier only because I had access to the original description by L’Herminier,” explains Gouraud. He published his findings in the Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club.

BHL has allowed Gouraud to uncover many fascinating details about the Baillon Collection. As another example, the Baillon Collection contains specimens collected during Louis Claude de Saulces de Freycinet’s three year voyage (1817-20) that cruised about the Pacific, visiting Australia, the Mariana Islands, Hawaiian Islands, other Pacific islands, and South America. One such specimen is a Grey-tailed Tattler (Heteroscelus brevipes), collected at the Mariana Islands. Sadly, the expedition met with tragedy when Freycinet’s ship, L’Uranie, wrecked in the Falkland Islands on 15 February, 1820, resulting in the loss of almost all of the expedition’s natural history collections. By consulting the account of the expedition in BHL, Gouraud discovered that specimens from 313 species survived the wreckage, and 12 specimens are now in the Baillon Collection.

Gouraud’s experiences demonstrate the multi-layered value of BHL’s collections. They are useful not only for providing information about species, ecosystems, habitats, and taxonomies, but also for historical investigations, such as uncovering the origins of museum collections. Gouraud has used BHL to uncover many other fascinating details about the Baillon Collection. You can explore some of these findings in his publications:

Gouraud emphasizes that his research is made possible not only by BHL, but also thanks to Annick Dussault, director of the Musée George Sand et de la Vallée Noire (La Châtre, France) that houses the Baillon Collection, as well as the city of La Châtre, that gave him the opportunity of working with the Baillon Collection.

We would like to extend a special thanks to Gouraud for sharing his incredible work with us and demonstrating how BHL supports that work. Do you use BHL to support your own work? Want to be featured on our blog? Then send us a message to [email protected]!

[1] Dickinson E.C., Overstreet L.K., Dowsett R.J. and Bruce M.D., (Eds.) 2011: Priority! The Dating of Scientific Names in Ornithology: a Directory to the literature and its reviewers. Northampton, U.K., Aves Press.

October 8, 2015by ulib-libraryjobs
Blog Reel, User Stories

Mars Invaders: The Wonderful World of Microfungi

In 1897, a monumental work appeared in print for the first time. It was a story of invasion. It was a story of war. It was a story of Martians.

The story, of course, was The War of the Worlds, by H.G. Wells, which first appeared in serialized form in the UK’s Pearson’s Magazine and the US’s Cosmopolitan magazine in 1897. It was later first published in book form by William Heinemann of London in 1898. Written between 1895-97, it is one of the earliest stories centered around conflict between humans and extraterrestrials. An extremely influential work, it has never been out of print.

The 1906 Belgian edition of the book included drawings by Brazilian artist Henrique Alvim Corrêa. His original pencil and ink drawings, depicting Martians wreaking havoc on a devastated Earth, are in fact going up for auction today in Beverly Hills, California, and are expected to realize a sum of $500,000.

Corrêa’s Martians, although largely mechanical, still have a very organic feel to them. Indeed, to the eyes of a trained expert, they bare a striking resemblance to something altogether earthly – microfungi.

Microfungi are fungi such as molds, mildews and rusts that differ from macrofungi by the absence of a large, multicellular fruiting body. Present in all terrestrial and freshwater and marine environments, microfungi grow in plants, soil, water, insects, cattle rumens, hair, and skin. Often benign, some species are also harmful, causing diseases in plants, animals and humans.

Dr. Dartanhã J. Soares has been studying plant pathology for twelve years. While his post graduate research focused on the taxonomy of plant pathogenic fungi, these days his work is focused on the management of fungal diseases on tropical crops at the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa). But while his current duties may deviate from an exclusive study of fungi, Dr. Soares’ true passion is still mycology.

“I really love looking through the microscope and literally ‘discovering’ an amazing hidden world,” enthuses Soares. “But before that, I need to collect samples to be examined, and this is almost as exciting as looking through the microscope. I really like to go into the field and collect plant samples exhibiting the most variable range of fungal infection symptoms like those caused by rust and smut fungi. We can see some examples of symptoms and spore types in these drawings from the late nineteen century” (Figs. 2 and 3).

Soares’ research on fungi, and discovery of amazing illustrations like those from Rust, smut, mildew and mould (Fig. 2 and 3), are what led him to the Biodiversity Heritage Library about seven years ago.

“I was trying to solve a puzzle about a superficial black fungus I found colonizing the leaves of Typha dominguensis,” recalls Soares. “At that time, I had just finished my Ph.D. thesis and had enough time to dig into the Internet looking for ‘obscure’ things. I eventually came across G. Arnaud’s thesis Les Astérinées, available in BHL. The book itself did not help me as much as I needed, not only because it was in French, but also because the information I was looking for was only partially mentioned. However, it revealed another hidden world which was the amazing possibility to access landmark works about fungi, of course, that I would never be able to access by any other way. However, it is important to note that I did not discover the full potential of BHL at that time. That happened later, when I ‘found’ Reginald Buller’s Researches on Fungi. At that time, [I realized], ‘Hey, I’ve already visited this website before. Maybe I can find other landmark works on it.’ And then I started to dig a little deeper into BHL.”

Accessing BHL on average about once a month, Soares sees the true value of BHL through the ability to satisfy his curiosity about the natural world.

“BHL is a powerful tool and makes our lives easier,” explains Soares. “BHL is doing amazing work making such rare and wonderful ‘masterpieces’ available to everyone around the globe. Specific to my research field, BHL has a minor direct impact; sometimes it is necessary to check some old fungal description and in those cases I check BHL to see if the original work is available. However, indirectly BHL had a much bigger impact. BHL is providing me with a unique opportunity to improve my knowledge and mainly my curiosity about some classical works I had already heard about but never had the opportunity to read myself.”

While Soares most often uses BHL to download whole PDFs of books, one of his favorite features on the website is the multiple means through which he can access and download content and the breadth of materials available.

“BHL is very versatile in the ways it provides access to what I need,” lauds Soares. “Sometimes I read titles or parts of titles online, but more frequently I download the whole PDF to include the title in my personal digital library. More recently, I have also requested to download high resolution images because I was interested in having the picture framed. Additionally, at first I used BHL only for work or related topics, but now I see that there are a lot of interesting titles [outside of my direct field of study]. For example, some time ago I read the book The river of doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Millard, and recently I saw that the book Through the Brazilian Wilderness, written by Theodore Roosevelt, is available at BHL. I have downloaded and started reading it.”

But while he loves the ability to download high resolution images from BHL, this feature also triggers a response from Soares on what he would like to see changed in BHL.

“The only thing I would change is the downloading process of high resolution images. It is a little tricky. It would be wonderful if we had the option to download high resolution images with one click, like: ‘click here to obtain this page in high resolution.'”

While we have recently released a tutorial better explaining how to download high resolution images from BHL, an easier way to provide access to these images is an item that we have added to our development wish list.

But what does all of this have to do with Martians and H.G. Wells? To understand, you have to consider Wells through the eyes of a fungi expert.

“My favorite title [in BHL] is Selecta fungorum carpologia from the Tulasne brothers,” begins Soares. “The line drawings are so amazing, so ‘real,’ and with such richness of detail that I constantly ask myself how they did that with such rudimental microscopes. If you have any doubt about this, look at Erysiphe guttata, which nowadays is called Phyllactinia guttata, in Selecta Fungorum Carpologia Vol 1, Tab.I (Fig. 4). The sexual stage, the globose bodies, of this fungus are smaller than a pin head, and even so can you see the richness of detail? Additionally, the Tulasne brothers established the pleomorphism – which is the capacity of a single organism to show distinct forms – of fungi and summarized their results in Selecta fungurom carpologia, which became a landmark [title] on fungi research. Well, at this point, you’re probably asking yourself, where are the Martians? Don’t you see them? Look more carefully at Fig. 4. Does the general aspect of the sexual bodies of P. guttata remind you of anything? No? Well, maybe you should take a second look at some of the images from The War of the Worlds. Ha-ha, probably now you are wondering if H.G. Wells got inspirations from P. guttata to describe the invading martians, aren’t you?”

Thank you, Dr. Soares, for taking the time to explore the wonderful world of fungi and Martians with us! Do you use BHL to support your work? Want to tell us about it? Send us a message at [email protected]. 

May 14, 2015by michelle.underhill
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The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is the world’s largest open access digital library for biodiversity literature and archives. BHL operates as a worldwide consortium of natural history, botanical, research, and national libraries working together to digitize the natural history literature held in their collections and make it freely available for open access as part of a global “biodiversity community.”

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