We are digitising more than half a million British and Irish butterflies and moths, as a pilot for the digitisation of all pinned collections.
The project is the first pilot for the mass digitisation of the Museum's 80 million natural history specimens.
We are testing and refining our methods so they can be applied to the digitisation of other pinned collections.
The digitised specimen data is being used to investigate a range of major scientific and conservation questions.
Methods
The team is currently digitising one specimen every 2.9 minutes and has taken a year to capture all the specimen level data for the butterflies.
Capturing specimen-level data in the collection is complex and involves five main steps
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Preparation: Labels are removed from beneath the specimen. The specimen and label are placed next to each other in a box.The box is backed with a neutral grey Plastazote® base.
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Imaging: The specimen is photographed using a Canon DSLR fitted with a macro lens.
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Rehousing: The labels and specimen are reassembled and placed into a new, purpose-built entomological drawer. The team is also taking the opportunity to rehouse the collections as part of the project, funded by the Cockayne Trust.
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Databasing: Data from the label are entered into the collections database using a custom built data entry interface.
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Georeferencing: The locality data on the labels is georeferenced to a geographic centroid that can be mapped.
Distribution
See where in the UK the Museum's orange tip butterflies were collected during the past 150 years.
As we digitise the Lepidoptera collections we are georeferencing each record, mapping the distribution of the collections and revealing collecting trends since the mid-nineteenth century.
To do this we take the locality data from each specimen label and convert it to a geographic centroid that can be mapped.
The maps show the geographical locations where specimens have been collected. The data allows us to determine the geographical coverage of Lepidoptera species in the collection over time.
These data can also be used in conjunction with other data to investigate a range of major scientific and conservation questions.
Georeferencing: The locality data on the labels is georeferenced to a geographic centroid that can be mapped.
Project summary
- Focus: To digitise more than half a million British and Irish butterflies and moths, as a pilot for the digitisation of all pinned collections
- Funding: Cockayne Trust
- Start date: 2013
- End date: 2016
Project team
Chair
Collections management
KE EMu quality assurance and control
- Darrell Siebert
Workflows
- Dr Vladimir Blagoderov
- Gerardo Mazzetta
Database and interfaces
- Adrian Hine
- Chris Sleep
- Mike Sadka
Research
Digitisation Team
- Peter Wing
- Elisa Cane
- Flavia Toloni
- Jasmin Perera
- Sophie Ledger
- Robyn Crowther
- Elisabetta Scialabba
Georeferencing
- Dr Malcolm Penn
- Liz Duffell
- Caitlin McLaughlin
Digital Museum
We are digitising 80 million specimens from our collections to an online data portal.
Digital collections programme
Establishing high-throughput digital capture workflows for collection types.
Entomology collections
Over 34 million insects and arachnids in one of the oldest and most important collections in the world.