World Spider Catalog updated

[GoTerps]

Hi all,

Just wanted to give everyone a heads up that the most recent update to Platnick's catalog, version 8.5, has gone live.
CLICK HERE.

For those interested, I received the following email this morning via the ISA...

Version 8.5 of the World Spider Catalog is now available at the usual site (http://research.amnh.org/entomology/spiders/catalog/INTRO1.html. There are a couple of notable milestones. We have finally passed the 40,000 mark for currently valid species (despite the recent valiant efforts of Mark Harvey and Leon Lotz in subtracting lots of useless names in Nephila and Cheiracanthium!). So please, let's not see any future references to spiders being a group of anything less than 40,000 species!

More important, for the future, is the superb job Robert Raven has done in getting unique Life Science Identifiers (LSIDs) attached to each of the currently valid familial, generic, and specific names. These LSIDs use the format recently recommended by GBIF; the intent is that each of these identifying character strings will be attached permanently to both the present taxon name, and to the valid name should that change (due to synonymies, transfers, or other nomenclatorial alterations). The LSID strings all begin with the prefix "urn:lsid:", enabling future web browsers to find information about the taxon, anywhere it may lurk on the Internet, by searching for these URNs (universal resource numbers), much as they now search for URLs (a plug-in already exists for the Mozilla browser, for example, for that purpose).

So, it should become possible to link entries in any specimen/locality database to the names in the catalog, as well as to entries in GenBank or on any web pages, via these LSIDs. It should also eventually become possible to have linked entries automatically updated, when new versions of the catalog are published. Obviously, substantial amounts of programming will be required before that vision becomes a reality, but we wanted to start making the LSIDs available now, so that anyone who wishes to forge such links in the future can begin to think about the process.

The actual numbers supplied are those that have been used in Robert's database conversion for several years now; he is currently completing the database conversion of the files for Version 8.5, and we hope to be able to make that database version of the catalog information available to the community soon.

As always, but particularly relevant given this significant expansion of the catalog: if you notice any errors -- major or trivial -- in the catalog, please bring them to my attention (platnick@amnh.org) so that they can be fixed before the next version is released.

Thanks, Norm Platnick

Eric

 

[UrbanJungles]

Great Stuff!

 

[Talkenlate04]

Hey good stuff. Is this an annual revision or does it just get updated when there is enough updating to make it worth while?

 

[unclechewy]

Very interesting, I have 7 species of Theraphosidae, only 899 to go

 

[pinktoe23]

Anyone else trying to access and coming up with a maintenance notice? :?

 

[GoTerps]

Anyone else trying to access and coming up with a maintenance notice? :?

Click the link I provided, not the one in the quoted email.

Hey good stuff. Is this an annual revision or does it just get updated when there is enough updating to make it worth while?

It's not updated on any set time period that I'm aware of. The last update (version 8.0) was mid-2007 I think.

There's a lot of time that goes into keeping this resource updated.

Eric

 

[GoTerps]

Just an FYI that the Catalog has been updated to version 9.0

Eric

 

[von_z]

Very cool.

 

[Zoltan]

Great, thanks for the info, Eric!

Any info about when the revision of the Lasiodora genus by Bertani will be published? (or was already?)

 

[Zoltan]

Database version of the WSC is online (beta version).

http://research.amnh.org/oonopidae/catalog/message.php
http://research.amnh.org/oonopidae/catalog/

 

[GoTerps]

Haha, I searched for this thread to provide the update and found you beat me to it Thanks.
Here's another little note from Dr. Platnick I got from ISA today:

Thanks to large amounts of work, especially by Dr. Robert Raven, over many years, the first public release of the database version of the World Spider Catalog is now available online, at the usual site

(http://research.amnh.org/entomology/spiders/catalog/.

You should see a new item on the right-hand side of the main menu bar, reading "Database". (If you don't see it, refresh the page, as your browser may be using a cached copy). Clicking there will take you to a page detailing the beta release of this application. We hope you find it useful, and look forward to getting your bug reports (and to getting them fixed!). Cheers, Norm Platnick

http://research.amnh.org/oonopidae/catalog/message.php

Eric

 

[syndicate]

Awesome!!Love the new site!Search feature will def come in handy to!

 

[Andy]

Awesome!!Love the new site!Search feature will def come in handy to!

Thats excellent niceone

 

[Loudog760]

Good info, thanks!

 

[Zoltan]

I totally gapped this, but the new version, 11.0, is online since the 24th of May.

 

[Zoltan]

The World Spider Catalog, Version 11.5 is online.

 

[Zoltan]

The World Spider Catalog, Version 12.0 is online.