Page Comparison

We make available all records contained in our database, including not only records that we received that are outside our scope, but records that we suspect to be erroneous for any reason. Those reasons may include a conflict with the scientific literature, incongruence with other data points in our database, comments from original collectors and we hope soon by user comments. Those records are shown in red on our mapping tab. Correcting these or determining that they are in fact not an error will require input from our users, especially users involved as collectors or determiners of those records. For this reason we include them, but realize that many users will not want to use these in certain data analyses without at least reviewing them for possible omission. All suspect records are labeled as such in the database and resultant queries along with our comments regarding details of our research into each record (species identification, collector comments, and original documentation). By far, most of these records are flagged because they are geographic outliers which we have not yet been able to fully research to a final conclusion. In most cases, specimen examination corrects outliers (by re-determination), but in some cases more thorough research into collectors' field notes, original jar labels, original hand-written museum ledgers and/or direct communication with people involved with collection, identification and curation are needed to make appropriate decisions regarding the validity of a suspect record.