And those thin pages had an unmistakeable, inky smell!

Call for abstracts for TDWG 2026 Conference Deadline for submissions is 20 May 2026, 23:59 UTC-12 Image: Kayak Nigardsbrevatnet Falkeblikk AS visitnorway.com

The TDWG 2026 Call for Abstracts is now open!
Deadline for submissions is 🗓️ 20 May 2026, 23:59 UTC-12.

Submit an abstract for a presentation or poster at #TDWG2026

Conference Theme: 🔬 & 🤖 Research and Robot-ready Biodiversity Data Standards.

More info: 🔗 tdwg.link/call-for-abstracts

Digitally native species are a necessary shift in taxonomic practice Nature Reviews Biodiversity - Biodiversity science laments how little is known about the planet’s biodiversity, yet routinely discards much of the taxonomic evidence generated during species...

Species descriptions should not be confined to "summary" PDFs only providing access to a fraction of the data underlying the conclusions. We here argue for "digitally native species" built around structured, specimen-linked, machine-actionable evidence from day one. rdcu.be/fcbwh

Have you seen this petition yet? The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University needs your support!

As our university is undergoing restructuring, its partnership with the natural history museum where I work, the Academy of Natural Sciences, is in jeopardy. If you value the involvement of science museums in the community, please consider checking out this petition. c.org/Db5WKdZSQ8

Black-and-white portrait of a smiling woman wearing glasses, set against a bright blue background with a stylized sunburst pattern in yellow and light blue. Text reads: Her work brings natural history to all of humanity. 2023 Wikimedia Laureate. Siobhan Leachman is a citizen scientist and open knowledge advocate from New Zealand, known for her contributions to natural history on Wikimedia projects.

Siobhan Leachman is a New Zealand citizen scientist, open knowledge advocate and prolific Wikimedian whose work focuses on natural history. She connects museum collections and biodiversity data with the public and champions open access. 🧵⬇️ (1/2)

SimpleMappr is dead, long live SimpleMappr? Blog by Rod Page on biodiversity informatics, taxonomy, systematics, phylogeny, knowledge graphs, and other topics.

Happy to see @rdmpage.bsky.social make progress on this iphylo.blogspot.com/2026/03/simp.... I like the "simplicity" of the interface & the cleaner approach Claude AI took with dependencies. And, tests! The original SimpleMappr relied on thousands of unit tests, which contributed to its 18yr run.

Photo of a box containing a portable bidet.

New purchase for canoe trips to help dissolve my earthly worries.

Linking #biodiversity #data is key to answering urgent research questions - but messy scientific names make it hard. Misspellings, synonyms, name changes...

See the proposed new #framework to help users pick the optimal workflow and tool for their needs 👇

#taxonomic #databases #biodiversity

Who (or what) signed the agreement with the landowner and what are the terms? Is it a breach if more people traipsed around (= trails & soil compaction) than they agreed to.

Semana Santa - Wikipedia

It's been 3wks since my 18yr old son stuffed a backpack and took a one-way flight by himself to Bélize. He's now in Guatemala, on his way to Xela, and then onward for Semana Santa en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semana_... in Antigua. Oh to be young again.

Congrats! That’s awesome!

I've just had a letter published in Nature! My co-authors and I briefly advocate for biodiversity knowledge experts to contribute not just to #Wikipedia but also to #Wikidata and #WikiCommons. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

a group of teddy bears are standing next to each other on a blue background Alt: Everything is connected with a group of teddy bears connecting together like a transformer

Ok folks do you have any suggestions for papers that used #wikidata and #entomology collection data? I’m thinking not just collector data or citation data - though also gratefully received - but trait data, other identifier linking etc.

Fresh Costa Rican pineapples, Peruvian mangoes and limes and Greek kiwis. All for the dehydrator for Canadian canoe tripping granola breakfasts.

I was imagining what it would be like to have a dinner party conversation if everyone at the table were to emulate the same pattern of speech with repeat phrases as one must do to keep Claude on-track. There'd definitely be an exasperated food fight.

GitHub - bionomia/dwc_agent_golang: DwC Agent parser ported to Go DwC Agent parser ported to Go. Contribute to bionomia/dwc_agent_golang development by creating an account on GitHub.

Inspired by @rdmpage.bsky.social and his use of Claude to port SimpleMappr, been experimenting on a port from the ruby-based dwc_agent collector name parser to one in Go github.com/bionomia/dwc.... Boosted @bionomia.net processing ~50X, but Claude often falters on full parity & it skips tests.

Neatly organized equipment for canoe trips on shelving units.

You could say there’s a problem when your basement spare bedroom has become the paddle gear room, but I don’t 😀

Had a play & noticed that SVG outputs include embedded raster layer(s) when enabled 🤔. I recall years ago that'd throw errors in MapServer & so stripped out raster layers for SVG downloads.

SimpleMappr to be Decommissioned SimpleMappr to be Decommissioned https://tinyurl.com/simplemappr On September 1, 2026 SimpleMappr, https://www.simplemappr will be decommissioned. This was not an easy decision, but it is the onl...

I've added the link and a blurb to the bottom of docs.google.com/document/d/1.... Hope this helps others contemplate & contribute to next steps.

Apologies for mass tagging, but you all replied to @dshorthouse.bsky.social about the demise of SimpleMappr. I've used Claude Code port David's app to a modern platform. I'd benefit from hearing from SimpleMappr users whether this port is "good enough" to be a viable replacement.

Sadly librarians who are thirsty for respect after years ignored by faculty, and dismissed by vendors are sometimes willing to overlook serious product deficiencies in exchange for being treated as valued intellectual partners by vendors. The bar for earning that loyalty can be surprisingly low

I once experienced similar. My wife was the teacher who brought a louse home from her class. I slide mounted it & gave it a det. "Larry". She brought it back to school for all kids to look under microscope & draw it in science class. Parents were not amused. 😬

SimpleMappr to be Decommissioned SimpleMappr to be Decommissioned https://bit.ly/simplemappr On September 1, 2026 SimpleMappr, https://www.simplemappr will be decommissioned. This was not an easy decision, but it is the only feas...

Hmm. Try this one docs.google.com/document/d/1...

SimpleMappr Create free point maps for publications and presentations

Regrettably, I have decided to decommission SimpleMappr, www.simplemappr.net on September 1, 2026. You may read about its origins, what others have accomplished in its 18 year run, and the reasons why I must turn it off in a document I wrote last night bit.ly/simplemappr.

Taxonomists: If you liked the old TAXACOM mailing list, we've restarted it. You can sign up, here:

groups.google.com/g/taxacom

Please share widely! We don't have access to the old lists. If you know any taxonomists, let them know, and pass it on.

#science #academia #taxonomy

For background on the project see "BioNames: linking taxonomy, texts, and trees" (https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj. 190 L) and "Ten years and a million links: building a global taxonomic library connecting persistent identifiers for names, publications and people" (https://doi.org/BDJ.11.e107914 L). Database Statistics Distinct name clusters Names with publications Names with DOls Names with free PDFs Total names 5,464,929 4,496,603 1,782,674 504,962 286,091

Slowly adding content to bionames.org and tweaking the interface. Hope page loads faster now and looks a little better on mobile. Lots of DOIs and PDFs for taxonomic papers, but so much to do. Half a million names linked to DOIs, wish it were more.

Quiche in a cast iron pan.

Levelled up my cast iron cooking to help clear up the fridge before a big move. Quiche!

Beyond Digitization: Open Digital Curation of Collections-based Biodiversity Data Open digital curation can be a continuous, inclusive process that explicitly incorporates annotations, enhancements, and round-tripping across the biodiversity data lifecycle. This issue aims to illus...

📢 Call for submissions: "Beyond Digitization: Open Digital Curation of Collections-based Biodiversity Data."

This topical collection aims to explore how #AI and human annotations can enhance #biodiversity #data and flow back to source systems.

📅 Deadline: 1 Sept 2026
Details 👇

I hope this topic is right up Symbiota’s alley and you and team consider working on an ms this summer. Would love to see it.

Beyond Digitization: Open Digital Curation of Collections-based Biodiversity Data Open digital curation can be a continuous, inclusive process that explicitly incorporates annotations, enhancements, and round-tripping across the biodiversity data lifecycle. This issue aims to illus...

Or if there might be work done, what happens if it’s not executed where the data originated? How do you plan for obsolescence? Maybe we’ll see some answers in BDJ. Sneak peek at a call for a special issue to be announced soon where manuscripts are welcome bdj.pensoft.net/topical_coll...