insect pics

StuartDH · #1 (**permalink**) 09-03-2006, 11:41 AM

We would really like to have a huge library of insect pics from around the world, so if you have any pics of insects please post them in the gallery.

Tanny · #2 (**permalink**) 11-09-2006, 02:18 PM

I wonder Stuart if I am able to download the five pictures into a thread without first putting them in the gallery. I am thinking more on the lines of me putting my pictorial life of a butterfly story in here, the story that I have put in another forum. I feel that there could be a wider audience in this Forum

Brian T · #3 (**permalink**) 11-09-2006, 02:42 PM

Thought this would start you off.

http://briantassell7384.fotopic.net/p16512115.html

Brian T.

Tanny · #4 (**permalink**) 11-09-2006, 05:47 PM

Sorry Brian but your picture is far too big, see if you can downside it. At least you have managed to put a picture here, I haven't worked it out yet. I keep getting knocked back on my KBs, the required size is far too small for my pictures.

Brian T · #5 (**permalink**) 11-09-2006, 06:54 PM

Have tried to attach the picture to this message and made it a lot smaller

Brian T.

paul m · #6 (**permalink**) 04-11-2006, 02:58 PM

Yo, all. New to this site and never had much luck loading things onto the WAB site. Pleased to see that one can incorporate small pics into mails *but* would also like to upload some to galleries. So could somebody please give advice (I can't actually fins any in the gallery - perhaps I'm not looking in the right place?)

(a) do the same size limitations apply as to WAB - I forget what they are now - upper and lower limits by dimensions (pixels) *and* upper limit by file size (Kb)?

(b) should one load into the personal folders or into the subject folders? The subject folders seem to be comprehensive so what is the point of the personal folders?

Thanks, Paul

paul m · #7 (**permalink**) 28-11-2006, 12:37 PM

I've added a few pictures of Greek insects to the Gallery. I don't know what most of them are - particularly the mantids and butterflies. Any suggestions will be welcome.

paul m · #8 (**permalink**) 08-01-2008, 03:38 PM

Black has been loading some African insect pictures including this fascinating beetle: http://www.wildabouttheworld.com/gal...php?photo=1257
which we now think is a tailed net-winged beetle Lycus trabeatus.

Came across an interesting South African website which isn't fully comprehensive, of course, but gives agood overview of African beetle families:

http://www.insecta.co.za/coleop/index.htm

Other galleries and identification tips at:
Lambert Smith's Insecta

Pudding4brains · #9 (**permalink**) 18-01-2008, 10:49 PM

I'm new to both WAB and WATW so maybe I don't quite understand what's going on, but I feel the galleries could be much more useful if there was some (more) taxonomic ordering available. It's a fair pain in the bum to look through the galleries (especially on WAB) to find something ...

I tried finding woodlice and ladybirds to maybe add some ID's, but especially with the "Insects" gallery that is no fun to do - I don't quite remember but think I quit after some 20 pages of 90 per page. When galleries get larger here, that's going to be a problem too I think.

Or am I missing something obvious?
Cheers!
Arp

goosey · #10 (**permalink**) 19-01-2008, 09:44 AM

Hi Arp, this has been discussed on WAB before about seperate forums for different insects and invertabrates but it was decided for those who are complete novices it would be more confusing than ever, and keep the forum as one for now.
As reguard to the gallery - I know what you mean. But you can use the "search" button and this works really well and just brings up those images with a certain word/words in the title. On WAB it works better as the Latin names "have" to be given with gallery submissions unless it is going into the unidentified or forum image catagory. Here we don't have that option or moderated galleries so there are images with no positive ID, Latin, English names or both. This can be an advantaged as it sets off discussions in the gallery.
If everyone can give as much info as possible with their uploads it so helpful to others. I know I have recently uploaded to the insects with a title of "bee and Fly" because I have no idea what they are, and any help will be appreciated. People should still be able to upload and share their images with no info, without feeling they don't know enough which may even deter them from joining in. The best thing we can all do is give positive help and ID where we can to encourage people - the more the merrier.

I hope this won't put you off searching the galleries, and contributing here, try the search button. I am sure you will have so much to offer with your interest in insects

.

paul m · #11 (**permalink**) 19-01-2008, 11:10 AM

Yes, there may be a problem one day - when it might be helpful to sub-divide galleries into e.g. butterflies-moths, dragonflies, etc. but at the moment there are so few photographs as not to be a problem. If/when we get a lot more pictures then Stuart might be persuaded to subdivide the galleries? (Might note that some people complain if they are offered to many galleries!).

The reason you didn't find any woodlice pictures is, I think, because there are none! Searching for "ladybird" was effective enough although "Coccinellidae" only brought up my pictures

. As Goosey says, we need to put as much information as possible into the pictures so that searches are effective.

One problem was/is that people put pictures into personal galleries and not into one of the main ones - these may well not be seen by people ... in part this stemmed from some of the galleries (plants was the biggest problem, I recall) not being functional for a while ... worth persevering though.

Pudding4brains · #12 (**permalink**) 19-01-2008, 11:26 AM

Hi All,

Of course it's a problem for nature-novices (like me!) to provide correct names. But having fixed fields for maybe Order, Family, Genus, Species, Male/Female, Development stage, Location, Time/Date to be filled in (either required or not) and make those selectable/searchable would really improve the usefulness of the galleries.

At the moment the search just "misses" too much because people don't use all the options for keywords etc and the search does not include all the words given in the comments, so any help/work on the images by experts who come along and spend their good time adding dets is basically lost (at least for searching purposes).

Having the mentioned fields at upload (and/or for later updating), probably best with drop-down lists, starting with the order and working down, with options "unknown" (for the nincompoops like me) and "undeterminable" (for experts reaching a dead end) would at least clearly prompt people to provide this info in a structured manner. Also, as mentioned, including keywords from comments would/could greatly improve things.

Also, having the option to select, say "Coleoptera" family "unknown" or (family given and genus unknown etc) is an open invitation to experts to provide dets, much more so than some unorganized galleries to browse.

The galleries here are not too bad now. But ones they reach the size of WAB you don't want to do the maintenance of implementing such things on the whole existing batch. So best to do it quickly - if ever.

I think not having such structure for all the great images is a missed opportunity.

Just my 2ct.
Arp

Pudding4brains · #13 (**permalink**) 19-01-2008, 11:39 AM

Hi Paul,

I think we crossed

Quote:

Originally Posted by paul m

Searching for "ladybird" was effective enough although "Coccinellidae" only brought up my pictures

.

That's a bit of my point exactly ...

I'm not suggesting so much to split things into more galleries - in general splitting is bad as in the end you will always find you selected the wrong criteria for splitting. If you select "family" it will turn out that for some group it should have been "infra order", or if you select "taxonomy" in general, someone will come along and say he/she would have been much happier with "Locality" or "Time of year".

So what you need to do is provide a clear structure to enter these things to the best of the uploaders knowledge and a good system for community members to help improve on errors/missing info with as little effort from moderators as possible.

The resources both WAB and WAW have both in terms of knowledgable members and photoproviders are amazing - no effort should be shunned to combine these to the maximum possible effectiveness!

Cheers!
Arp

P.S. To illustrate: Search "all fields" (sic!) for "bug", "bugs" and "heteroptera" renders different results. It also includes images that still have "bug" in the title, although identified as "beetle" since. It does not show, bugs that miss the words in the title and have been identified as a bug since. At the moment I can do 5-6 searches (including comments), get 2-10 images for each and "feel" I've got most bugs (probably won't have seen all though). But try that with 5-6 searches rendering 500-1000 images each, with many doubles between the searches, etc etc - it's not going to make people happy.

paul m · #14 (**permalink**) 19-01-2008, 12:10 PM

I'm just going out so briefly ...
This is, as always a bigger problem for invertebrates because (a) there are far more species/genera/fa,ilies and (b) many potential users won't have knowledge of the taxonomy/nomenclature.
I think, for the present that we might put in more keywords and details. Obviously it is something that needs more discussion and would have a knock-on effect for other galleries.
Perhaps we should continue the debate/discussion on:
http://www.wildabouttheworld.com/forum/web-site/
It would be useful to have Stuart's comments since he will have to cope with any reorganisation!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pudding4brains

Hi Paul,

I think we crossed

That's a bit of my point exactly ...

I'm not suggesting so much to split things into more galleries - in general splitting is bad as in the end you will always find you selected the wrong criteria for splitting. If you select "family" it will turn out that for some group it should have been "infra order", or if you select "taxonomy" in general, someone will come along and say he/she would have been much happier with "Locality" or "Time of year".

So what you need to do is provide a clear structure to enter these things to the best of the uploaders knowledge and a good system for community members to help improve on errors/missing info with as little effort from moderators as possible.

The resources both WAB and WAW have both in terms of knowledgable members and photoproviders are amazing - no effort should be shunned to combine these to the maximum possible effectiveness!

Cheers!
Arp

P.S. To illustrate: Search "all fields" (sic!) for "bug", "bugs" and "heteroptera" renders different results. It also includes images that still have "bug" in the title, although identified as "beetle" since. It does not show, bugs that miss the words in the title and have been identified as a bug since.

Pudding4brains · #15 (**permalink**) 19-01-2008, 12:21 PM

Hi,

Quote:

Originally Posted by paul m

Perhaps we should continue the debate/discussion on:
http://www.wildabouttheworld.com/forum/web-site/ It would be useful to have Stuart's comments since he will have to cope with any reorganisation!

I'll keep an eye on that forum, but I'm not sure I have much more to say on the matter - these were just some thoughts based on my first impressions. Don't expect anyone to go and change things around just cause I mentioned this, but then again some of the points might stick in the back of their minds when doing future updates

In the mean time I'm happy enough with the things as they are, but it can't hurt to point out "room for improvement" me thinks.

Cheers!
Arp