Arctos Happenings

Critical Issues Meetings

Arctos users meet on the first Thursday of each month at 10:30 am PST to discuss current critical issues, the next meeting is April 4th. What are the critical issues up for discussion? Check them out before the next Critical Issues Meeting! These are different from the Arctos Working Group meetings that meet the 2nd Thursday each month! Participation in both is highly encouraged and welcomed! An e-mail invite with how to connect was sent to via the Arctos google community listserve. 

Denver Museum of Nature & Science's Phyllis Sharp on WoRMS

Until recently, Arctos members could select either Arctos Plants or Arctos (everything else) as their Taxonomic Source.  Beginning December 2018, we uploaded the entire database of the WoRMS – the World Register of Marine Species (http://www.marinespecies.org) - as an additional Source named WoRMS (via Arctos).  Currently, it is being used only by DMNS Marine Invertebrate Collections.  Because the collection includes terrestrial mollusks not necessarily in WoRMS, DMNS occasionally adds needed taxa to WoRMS (via Arctos).

Using the WoRMS (via Arctos) source has dramatically reduced the amount of taxonomic work done by the collection administrators.  In the past, we were adding many taxa every day.  Also, because the classifications in WoRMS (via Arctos) have a unique aphiaID and are automatically updated via webservice, we no longer have to use the Hierarchical Classification Editor to move genera to a different family or make similar changes.  And we know that all taxa in a given genus or family have the same higher taxonomy so they can be easily searched.

But there are occasional surprises.  The automatic update of WoRMS (via Arctos) means that a genus may have been moved to a new family without us being aware of the change.  For example, we were rearranging our Mitridae family and couldn’t find an entry for our specimens of Charitodoron agulhasensis that we labeled in 2017.  That genus had been recently moved to a new family Charitodoronidae Fedosovc, Herrmann, Kantos & Bouchet, 2018.  So keeping our specimens in the exact same organization as our Arctos database is an ongoing task.

Arctos can add additional local sources, links to webservices or a unique taxa database developed by a participating institution. We are in the process of adding classifications from the Paleobiology Database to the Arctos taxonomy source and eventually may be able to add the WoRMS-like functionality of updating them via the PBDB taxon ID.

Data Entry Breakthrough replaces Students!

Entering specimen data just got easier and cheaper! The latest feature in Arctos allows you to take a photo of a specimen data label or spreadsheet and it will convert it into an Arctos specimen record! No more transcription errors and hello more time! 

Ohio Wesleyan's Brant Museum of Zoology houses teaching collections of mammals, birds and their eggs and nests, insects, mollusks, and corals, with smaller collections of other taxa.
This natural history museum features more than 400 mounted birds, including a golden eagle. It draws researchers from across the country, but its collections are used primarily for classroom and laboratory teaching, including helping students to better understand both taxonomic and evolutionary relationships.

Search the Data!

The Biology Department maintains the Angelo State Natural History Collections, which contains nearly 150,000 specimens of all types of living organisms. The collections are preserved, documented and curated assemblages that are important to a wide array of human activities.

The collections are essential to the management of natural resources because they document the diversity and biology of organisms that impact agriculture, health, and urban and other rural activities. They also characterize the ecosystems that we all depend on.
The collections are a resource for many fields of biological research. The presence and growth of the collections at ASU are important to the university, San Angelo and the Concho Valley because they are a readily available local resource for the region.