Diario del proyecto MassBeetles

martes, 02 de enero de 2024

New Year, New Beets!

Happy New Year! Just did a decent-sized update to the MassBeetles database, adding 55 new species, and even one new family, bringing the total number of families to 100. After 6 years of this, adding a new family is rare, so I took a look to see what it was: the Georissidae, or the "minute water-loving beetles." This family used to be a subfamily of the Hydrophilidae, and is represented by a single species in Massachusetts, Georissus pusillus. The Massachusetts specimens, from both Essex and Franklin Counties, are part of a collection at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.

As of January 1, 2024, the database consists of 4171 records, and includes 3821 unique species in 100 families, derived from 86 online and print sources.

Publicado el martes, 02 de enero de 2024 a las 04:16 AM por jformanorth jformanorth | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

jueves, 07 de septiembre de 2023

September Database Update

Hi everyone. We just pushed fresh data to MassBeetles.com and are now at 3761 unique species in 99 families. For those keeping track, that is one new family, a rare occurrence after 4+ years of collecting data. The new family is the Dascillidae, and the specimen, shared through GBIF, does not even have an id beyond the family, and is restricted to one specimen from Middlesex County. Dascillids are sometimes referred to as "soft-bodied plant beetles" - unfortunately the Artematopodidae family goes by that same common name and also has species in Massachusetts.

The other big news is that the database backend has undergone a major upgrade, and we now have SOURCES. Probably not that exciting for anyone but me. It feels good to have accountability though! To check it out, just click on any species in the list, and the sources will pop up below it:

>

  • Jenn
Publicado el jueves, 07 de septiembre de 2023 a las 02:51 AM por jformanorth jformanorth | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

lunes, 12 de junio de 2023

June 2023 Update!

Still working my way through the 2-volume Beetles of Northeastern North America, but as of today we are at 3583 unique species in 98 families, and 3925 records (some records are "Genus sp." for various reasons - if the only record for a genus is "sp." then that counts as a unique species). I've added over 400 new species since the April update.

Filling in the county-level data is going to take awhile, but it is very obvious from what I have seen that we are lacking county records even for the most common species from Hampden County and Nantucket. So if you are in those areas, add your beetle photos to iNat!!

https://www.massbeetles.com/

Publicado el lunes, 12 de junio de 2023 a las 01:14 AM por jformanorth jformanorth | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

miércoles, 26 de abril de 2023

3,426 species and counting!

I am working my way through the massive, two-volume Beetles of Northeastern North America! The April 25, 2023 update of Mass Beetles added another 100 species to the database, check it out at http://www.massbeetles.com

Mass Beetle logo

Publicado el miércoles, 26 de abril de 2023 a las 01:34 AM por jformanorth jformanorth | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

lunes, 10 de abril de 2023

Data Update: 154 additional species

Ended up doing another MassBeetles database update today and added 154 new species, the majority of which are in the Staphylinidae (now surpassing the Carabidae as the top family). I had to give the giant beetle books (Beetles of Northeastern North America) back to the library yesterday, even though I only got 2/3 of the way through the first volume :-(. Got a Boston Library Consortium card so I can check it out directly from Wellesley College when it gets back there, hopefully for longer than 2 weeks. Three more big digital resources to comb through while I wait...
https://www.massbeetles.com/

Publicado el lunes, 10 de abril de 2023 a las 01:44 AM por jformanorth jformanorth | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

MassBeetles Update

MassBeetles has been updated to add several hundred new records. As of April 3, 2023 the database consists of 3507 records, and includes 3175 unique species in 96 families. County-level data is still being populated and is incomplete. We are also working to add full source data by the end of April.

It is kind of amazing how much data is still left to be reviewed. I am still working through several thousand GBIF records. Don Chandler was generous enough to pull Massachusetts records out of his own personal data set, and I have added those. I am working through Downie and Arnett's Beetles of Northeastern North America, but it is a two-volume set only available in hard copy, got through about 2/3 of one book before my interlibrary loan ended so I will have to reorder it.

https://www.massbeetles.com/

P.S. - I had stickers made, if you see me in person feel free to ask for one :-)

Publicado el lunes, 10 de abril de 2023 a las 12:02 AM por jformanorth jformanorth | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

sábado, 21 de mayo de 2022

MassBeetles is Live!

A beta of MassBeetles is now live! I am still working to populate the county-level data so expect to see a lot of blanks there for now.

Please note, only Research Grade iNat records are included in the database.

Mass Beetles Logo

Publicado el sábado, 21 de mayo de 2022 a las 03:15 AM por jformanorth jformanorth | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

domingo, 08 de mayo de 2022

May 2022 Data Update: Getting Ready to Deploy

Well, that took way, way longer than I wanted it to, but I finally have the MassBeetles data in good enough shape to share a draft publicly. We are working to deploy an online version within the next week or so. The current species total is topping out at 2938 species, a slight decrease from the December update, because I found a few dupes in there (synonymy is a tough nut to crack sometimes). Top 5 families remained the same. I will now pivot to filling in county-level data, which will be deployed as part of MassBeetles 2.0.

Looking forward to all of you making my data set gloriously out of date with your uploads for the 2022 growing season :-).

Publicado el domingo, 08 de mayo de 2022 a las 10:20 PM por jformanorth jformanorth | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

sábado, 11 de diciembre de 2021

December 2021 Data Update

I have finished the final cull through data sources and am now making my way through the data set one more time to add authors and dates. This is taking FOREVER but is necessary and has already allowed me to clarify taxonomy on a few species where sources that differ widely in age use different names for the same species.

Current species count is 2949. This includes 2891 species and 58 additional records where the genus is unique but there are no records in MA identified to the species level (i.e. "Deinopsis sp.") that I am counting as one "species" each as a conservative estimate in order to keep my species count as accurate as possible.

I am hoping to be done with the the author/date data entry by Christmas, and will then turn to working on getting a draft version of the database up on my website.

Thanks to Peter Messer, Charley Eiseman and others for supplying additional checklists and other resources that helped me add records to the list, and to John VanDyk at Bugguide for helping me cull an updated list of MA records for 2018-2021.

P.S. - With the addition of the data from Yves Bousquet's "Catalogue of Geadephaga (Coleoptera, Adephaga) of America, north of Mexico", Carabidae has now bumped Curculionidae as the top beetle family for the state (species numbers are approximate):

Carabidae 486
Curculionidae 420
Staphylinidae 323
Chrysomelidae 285
Cerambycidae 224

Publicado el sábado, 11 de diciembre de 2021 a las 05:21 AM por jformanorth jformanorth | 1 comentario | Deja un comentario

domingo, 11 de julio de 2021

July data update

Just finished running through the last year and a half of iNat data points - 7600 new beetle observations for Massachusetts over that time!

The iNat update added two new families to the checklist (now at 95) and the number of species is now at 2698, up 23 from the last update. The 5 most common families stayed the same - you'll need to go check the previous post to see that :-).

On to the bugguide update...

Publicado el domingo, 11 de julio de 2021 a las 02:28 AM por jformanorth jformanorth | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario