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rdmpage.bsky.social
Rod Page
@rdmpage.bsky.social
1.1K followers 1K following 440 posts
Expat Kiwi, Professor of Taxonomy at Glasgow University, inclined to say that something sucks at every available opportunity. Biodiversity informatics, phylogeny, knowledge graphs. I also run the @evoldir.bsky.social bot.
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rdmpage.bsky.social
Do you mean that the ā looks too large? On my Mac it looks fine, but on my iPhone (screenshot below) it doesn’t look great. I wonder if this is an issue with the font (Minion Pro) used on the website? I think author of post would have no reason to expect mobile to mess up the ā.
January 9, 2026 at 11:08 PM
rdmpage.bsky.social
The web is still wonderful. Searching for an obscure entomological journal online, I stumbled across Zentral Gut, which has on its landing page this striking image: "Bürgenstock. Der Lift mit Ballon" n2t.net/ark:/63274/z...
Bürgenstock. Der Lift mit Ballon
January 7, 2026 at 2:54 PM
rdmpage.bsky.social
Playing with Claude AI and a triple store Im building for @boldsystems.bsky.social DNA barcodes and associated literature. Lots of different licenses used in barcoding papers (91 at last count). Claude helpfully summarises the top 10.
Top 10 Most Common Licenses: Elsevier TDM User License: 4,890 entities (24.5%) CC-BY 4.0 (http): 3,280 entities (16.5%) Wiley VOR Terms: 2,446 entities (12.3%) Springer TDM: 1,865 entities (9.4%) Elsevier TDM REP License: 1,471 entities (7.4%) ASM Non-Commercial TDM: 801 entities (4.0%) CC-BY 4.0 (https): 766 entities (3.8%) CC-BY 4.0 (https, alt): 762 entities (3.8%) Wiley TDM License 1.1: 626 entities (3.1%) CrossRef Policy-029: 434 entities (2.2%)
December 17, 2025 at 9:06 PM
rdmpage.bsky.social
The bit that caught my eye was the mention of Wisconsin and N.J.
December 15, 2025 at 11:22 AM
rdmpage.bsky.social
This page in @biodivlibrary.bsky.social seems relevant www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/2558623
1893-] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 323. DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY, Edited by Prof. JOHN B. SMITH, Sc. D., New Brunswick, N. J. A Few Notes on Cranberry Insects. The cranberry industry is one of the most important in parts of Massachusetts and parts of New Jersey, and the cultivation of this fruit is extending to the West. It has already become of considerable importance in Wisconsin, and plantations have been started in the State of Washington. Recently, the horticulturist of the Wisconsin Station has published a bulletin on the insects and diseases of the cranberry, based almost entirely on work done at the New Jersey Station by the botanist and entomologist there. In August last I had an opportunity of conversing with Mr. Goff, at Madison, Wis., and he in- forms me that in some respects there seems to be a little difference in habit of some of the insects, and particularly in the case of the Teras vacciniivorana. In New Jersey and on Cape Cod it is well known that this insect is dimorphic, and that there is a fall brood, which is slate colored and lives through the Winter, and that there are two Summer broods, both of which are orange colored. The interesting point seems to be, that this orange colored brood is entirely wanting in Wisconsin, and that only the slate colored form exists there. The evidence upon which this statement is made, is not entirely beyond question, but it is very likely indeed to prove correct, from what we know of the actions of other in- sects in similar climatic conditions. A point of some interest in connection with the new bogs that have been started in Washington is, that I have received from that place speci- mens of the " Fire-worm," the larva of Rhopobota vacciniana, the insects being transmitted to me through the agency of the secretary of the Amer- ican Cranberry Growers' Association. Investigations made at my request show that the vines which …
December 15, 2025 at 9:08 AM
rdmpage.bsky.social
I've decided enogh is enough and declared Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society to be "done" @biodivlibrary.bsky.social Fascinating journal on Sri Lanka, with delightful notes recording every editor's nightmare - printing with the wrong numbers 🙄
C. A. S. JOURNAL, Vol. VIII., No. 29, 1884. By an oversight, the pagination was not run on from "Journal, Vol. VIII., No. 26, 1883," No. 27, 1884, and No. 28, 1884. It is not possible to correct the paging neatly, except in manuscript. Members are requested to do this for themselves. The pages should run from 297-488. C. A. S. JOURNAL, Vol. VIII., No. 27, 1884. Bran oversight, the pagination was not run on from "Journal Vol. VIII., No. 26, 1883." It is not possible to correct the paging neatly, except in manuscript. Members are requested to do this for themselves. The pages should run from 95--192, and "Part I." on the cover should be struck out. C. A. S. JOURNAL, Vol. VIII., No. 28, 1884. By an oversight, the pagination was not run on from " Journal Vol. VIII., No. 26, 1883, " and "Journal Vol. VIII., No. 27, 1884." It is not possible to correct the paging neatly, except in manuscript. Members are requested to do this for themselves. The pages should run from 193-296, and "Part II." on the cover should be struck out.
December 10, 2025 at 1:48 PM
rdmpage.bsky.social
Playing with Claude and a little knowledge graph of DNA barcoding papers, these are the papers "related" to doi.org/10.1371/jour... (on the extinct Fijian coconut moth). Three other papers on extinct species or museum-based material are in the list, suggesting that this function might be useful.
Target work: Phylogenetic position of the 'extinct' Fijian coconut moth, Levuana iridescens (Lepidoptera: Zygaenidae) Most strongly related (3 co-citations): Century-old DNA barcodes reveal phylogenetic placement of the extinct Jamaican Sunset Moth, Urania sloanus Cramer (Lepidoptera: Uraniidae) - This is the Genome Canada-funded paper we looked at earlier! Other related works (2 co-citations each): Critical factors for assembling a high volume of DNA barcodes - Methodological paper DNA barcodes from century-old type specimens using next-generation sequencing - Another museum specimens paper Bayesian phylogenetic and phylodynamic data integration using BEAST 1.10 - Phylogenetics software MEGA11: Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis version 11 - Bioinformatics tool Next generation sequencing-aided comprehensive geographic coverage sheds light on the status of rare and extinct populations of Aporia butterflies (Lepidoptera: Pieridae) - The Black-veined White butterfly paper Posterior summarization in Bayesian phylogenetics using Tracer 1.7 - Phylogenetics analysis tool IQ-TREE: A fast and effective stochastic algorithm for estimating maximum-likelihood phylogenies - Phylogenetics software The target work is another paper about using DNA from historical specimens to study an extinct moth species, which explains why it's so strongly co-cited with the Jamaican Sunset Moth paper!Claude can make mistakes. Please double-check responses.
December 4, 2025 at 5:37 PM
rdmpage.bsky.social
Why aren't things in biodiversity informatics linked up? Here is a barcode in @boldsystems.bsky.social bold-view-bf2dfe9b0db3.herokuapp.com/record/CALI0... that has an image of a specimen from @nhm-london.bsky.social yet the museum's own portal has no image data.nhm.ac.uk/dataset/coll...
December 2, 2025 at 8:55 AM
rdmpage.bsky.social
Ok, definitely the last of these "pretty" experiments... the rather less colourful Icones plantarum biostor.org/issn/0269-3542, just a single volume from @biodivlibrary.bsky.social processed so far.
November 27, 2025 at 12:55 PM
rdmpage.bsky.social
OK, probably the last of the "pretty" for a while (this is all a massive displacement activity). I'm starting to add plates from Curtis's botanical magazine to BioStor starting with Volume 145 biostor.org/issn/0011-4073. Trying to automate this as much as possible, so expect some ugly errors.
November 26, 2025 at 4:15 PM
rdmpage.bsky.social
Agreed — "pretty" is something of a running joke between @nicolekearney.bsky.social and I where she advocates for making illustrations such as these more discoverable, and I prefer to focus on the less pretty, more technical content in @biodivlibrary.bsky.social . So much to do, so little time…
November 26, 2025 at 11:39 AM
rdmpage.bsky.social
More articles extracted from @biodivlibrary.bsky.social , this time "Flowering Plants of South Africa" biostor.org/issn/0015-4504 Tricky to work with these articles as no page numbers and page and plate ordering needs to be flipped. Nightmare, but at least we get to see the "pretty".
November 25, 2025 at 11:31 PM
rdmpage.bsky.social
It looks like DBpedia has gotten a lot less useful for my purposes 🙁It used to include a short summary of a topic (often in multiple languages) but now that has gone(?) (compare dbpedia.org/page/Blattidae with web.archive.org/web/20221226... from @waybackmachine.bsky.social )
November 24, 2025 at 2:43 PM
rdmpage.bsky.social
Added over 400 articles to Journal of @entsocbc.bsky.social in @biodivlibrary.bsky.social. Articles are in BioStor biostor.org/issn/0071-0733 and should appear in BHL tomorrow #bhlsunday
November 23, 2025 at 1:40 PM
rdmpage.bsky.social
Each year more content moves into the #publicdoman and hence @biodivlibrary.bsky.social can make more articles freely available. Today I've added articles from the Annales of @socentomolfr.bsky.social 1923-1928 to BioStor biostor.org/issn/0037-9271 and these will appear in BHL shortly.
September 25, 2025 at 3:54 PM
rdmpage.bsky.social
It’s not open access, but they do show most of it. This is what happens if I click on the link, notice at the end the content fades out and the paywall appears. I can only access the rest of the article by logging in to my Uni account.
August 9, 2025 at 4:24 PM
rdmpage.bsky.social
Experimenting with using t-SNE to plot @boldsystems.bsky.social DNA barcodes in "sequence space" (in this case, defined by k-mer vectors). This example is bold-view-bf2dfe9b0db3.herokuapp.com/record/GMESB... where the BIN BOLD:ACP0173 looks to comprise two distinct clusters.
August 6, 2025 at 6:58 PM
rdmpage.bsky.social
Just added a new feature to BOLD View (my alternative interface to @boldsystems.bsky.social ) that adds specimen lookjup in @gbif.org. If you see a catalogue number (such as "USNM ENT 01453986") you can click on it and a panel opens that shows that specimen in GBIF.
Screen shot showing specimen USNM ENT 01453986 Screenshot of panel showing link to GBIF for USNM ENT 01453986
July 25, 2025 at 10:11 AM
rdmpage.bsky.social
All articles in "Genera Insectorum" from 1902 to 1970 have now been extracted in BioStor biostor.org/oclc/5316074 and are shown in @biodivlibrary.bsky.social. Some spectacular plates. HT to @bfly52.bsky.social for the metadata that made this task easier. #onearticleatatime
July 25, 2025 at 7:45 AM
rdmpage.bsky.social
Finally picked up my copy of “Sir Graham Kerr and the flouring of Glasgow zoology”, a history of what is now part of @sbohvm.gla.ac.uk, assembled with much effort and love by Roger Downie.
Cover of special volume “Sir Graham Kerr and the flouring of Glasgow zoology”
June 30, 2025 at 12:26 PM
rdmpage.bsky.social
If you like flies then @biodivlibrary.bsky.social has a treat for you. The Manual of Afrotropical Diptera is being added to BHL, and chapters are being extracted making it easier to navigate these large volumes. See www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/343508 and www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/343512
June 13, 2025 at 9:04 AM
rdmpage.bsky.social
There are a couple of positive responses, and a few thoughtful ones, see below. There’s a lot of anti AI rage, which I think is misplaced.
While I understand the reason, I think the level of the knee-jerk reactions in the comments is not proper of a platform like iNaturalist. I too am deeply tired of LLMs being shoved down our throats. I am, also, a person in the exact field where I'm being literally asked to work towards replacing my own position with an LLM. I don't like LLMs. I also thought "Ah sh*t" when I first saw the forum post's title. With that said, I ask you all to pause for a second and consider this before posting: -Lots of comments are about "how about a wiki made from humans", about letting the platform's do the work. All taxa have an "about" section that links directly to the taxa's wikipedia article, alongside links to other relevant platforms with info on the taxa. If no wiki article exists, there is a link to create one. Did you edit the wiki articles for every single taxa you offered relevant comments on before to ensure the info is there? Is there any instance of an "This is XYZ because of these reasons" comment that you left without ensuring that same data was added to wikipedia or other relevant sources of ID info for the public? Do you think everyone else also ensures the About tab has all those details every time they comment? Do you realise this project aims to do that work that you, me and millions of others didn't do? -What do you think your reaction would be if Computer Vision didn't exist yet and it was announced today? Do you think Computer Vision should be removed entirely, since it also tends to give out wrong IDs? Should Seek be binned as well? -Did you take all possible actions on your side to ensure iNat doesn't have to resort to taking a $1.5M grant from a megacorp? Did you chose the copyright option that allows everything to be uploaded to GBIF? Do you donate regularly? Do you campaign for others to choose CCO and donate? -...If you did allow GBIF to use your data, do you realise that that action has already enabled Google to use it without compensation, permission…
June 11, 2025 at 9:13 AM
rdmpage.bsky.social
SkyBLAST is indeed a "lightning fast" version of NCBI BLAST sky-blast.com. Like, really fast.
June 6, 2025 at 9:48 AM
rdmpage.bsky.social
The more I look the more European taxa keep appearing in Madagascar in this @gbif.org metabarcoding dataset doi.org/10.15468/pad....
June 4, 2025 at 7:39 PM
rdmpage.bsky.social
Likewise a European fly Helina impuncta is also in Madagascar, based on DNA metabarcoding www.gbif.org/species/5069...
June 4, 2025 at 2:45 PM