1. Digitization of the Illinois Natural
History Survey insect collection
Dmitry Dmitriev
INHS Image Archive
2. INHS Insect Collection: Overview
• One of the oldest and most
comprehensive insect collections in
North America
• 9th largest collection in the USA (~7
million prepared specimens)
• >13,000 primary type specimens
4. Brief History of INHS: Early Era (1857-1875)
• 1858 - Establishment of Natural History
Society at Illinois Normal University, by
small group of active members including
Cyrus Thomas, John Powell, Benjamin
Walsh, and Stephen Forbes
• 1861 - 60,000 specimens in the collection
Oldest specimen in the collection
Cyrus Thomas
Illinois Normal University
John Powell
5. Expansion Era, 1875-1922
• 1877 - INHS renamed as State Laboratory of
Natural History with Stephen Forbes as first
director
• 1885 - State Laboratory moved to Urbana
• Original paid staff of seven people
• 1903 - Charles Hart (true bugs) appointed as first
entomology curator,
and assistant curator John Malloch (flies)
Stephen A. Forbes
Natural History Museum,
Urbana, 1917
Charles Hart and field party near
University Hall, Urbana, ca. 1870
Havana, IL, 1894
6. Era of Comprehensive Faunistic Treatments 1923-1950’s
Under Theodore Frison and Herbert Ross
• Systematics of Illinois fauna
• Illinois Natural History Survey
Bulletins
• Plecoptera (stoneflies)
• Megaloptera (fishflies)
• Ephemeroptera (mayflies)
• Trichoptera (caddisflies)
• Thysanoptera (thrips)
• Other groups covered by visiting
entomologists:
• Aphids (F.C. Hottes, T. Frison)
• Plant bugs (H.H. Knight)
• Leafhoppers (D.M. DeLong)
• 1958 - 2 million specimens by 100th
anniversary
Theodore Frison
Herbert Ross, 1935
Sanderson & Stannard, 1953
7. Era of Globalization, 1950’s-present
Extensive globalization of collecting efforts, many funded by
NSF
North America
• Herbert Ross
• Caddisflies, leafhoppers, other insects
Central America/Caribbean Islands
• Milton Sanderson
• Coleoptera
• Dominican amber
• Wallace LaBerge, bees
Worldwide
• Donald Webb, Diptera
• Michael Irwin, Diptera
• Christopher Dietrich, Hemiptera
(leafhoppers)
• Felipe Soto-Adames, Collembola
• Kevin Johnson, Psocodea
• Ed DeWalt (aquatic insects)
• David Voegtlin (aphids)
• Willliam Ruesink (Coleoptera)
• George Godfrey (Lepidoptera)
• Mexico, 2005
• China, 2010
• Argentina, 2008
9. Contributions of private collections
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Charles Robertson: insects visiting flowers near Carlinville
(1884-1914)
Murray Glenn: Microlepidoptera (1927-1976)
Andreas Bolter (all orders)
Emil Bees (Lepidoptera)
C.L. Metcalf (flower flies)
W.P. Hayes (weevils)
A.D. MacGillivray (sawflies)
P.N. Musgrave (water beetles)
K.F. Auden (beetles)
Charles Robertson
Murray Glenn
Patrick Conway:
Lepidoptera, 2009
William Rose:
Coleoptera, 2011
10. The Present: Digital Age
• Specimen-level electronic database, 1990’s
• NSF funded projects
• Digitize label data
• Retrospective georeferenced localities
• Accessible via GBIF portal
• Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, Trichoptera
• Hymenoptera
• Central Asian grassland fauna
• Microleafhoppers
• Orthoptera
slide mounted specimens
ethanol-preserved specimens
pinned specimens
11. NSF Advancing Digitization of Biological
Collections (ADBC) Goals
• digitize 1 billion specimens in 10 years for $100
million ($0.10/specimen)
• build Thematic Collection Networks (TCNs) to address
specific research goals
• link TCNs under national HUB
12. Tri-Trophic Thematic Collection Network
• AMNH – lead organization
• 34 participating museums
(including INHS).
• The goals to capture label data
for herbivorous Hemiptera
(aphids, scales, hoppers,
cicadas, and true bugs), their
host plants and parasitic
wasps.
• ~200,000 INHS specimens
entered to the database
18. InvertNet
• Digitize all holdings of 22 arthropod collections (>50 million
specimens)
• Provide access to images and other data via online virtual
museum
• Provide platform for research and development of additional
tools and resources
19. Collection digitization: drawers
• Custom designed
precision robotics
system
– Integrated and
customized for InvertNet
» Captures images of
drawer from
multiple positions in
X, Y, and Z
» Raw images
combined to produce
single very high
resolution
2-D image and
3-D reconstruction
20. Collection digitization: drawers
Top-down view
• Delta Robot, digital
camera, telecentric
lens captures grid
of single, close-up
images at 40-60 x/y
coordinates and 5
perspectives
• Single images stitched
to yield Gigapixel
images from multiple
viewpoints
Angled view
• Enables virtual
tilting
21. Collection digitization: drawers
1. capture image of drawer +
metadata (location, contents)
2. segment unit trays
(image analysis
software)
3. segment
specimens
4. capture label
data (crowd-sourcing)
25. Fossil insect collaborative.
• A deep time approach to studying diversification and
response to environmental change
• 7 collaborative institutions
28. Collection Digitization: Global Coverage
2008
2013
GBiF
Today, ~800,000 records (2 million specimens)
http://data.gbif.org/datasets/provider/75
29. Outreach
C. Dietrich
INHS Image Archive
C. Dietrich
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Annual Prairie Research Institute Expo
Illinois Wilds Institute for Nature (IWIN) courses
Travelling Science Center
INHS published insect field guides
30. Acknowledgements
•Collaborators:
C. Dietrich, F. Soto-Adames, E. DeWalt, T. Schuh, C. Bartlet,
S. Heads, M. Yoder, B. Morris, A. Bader, J. Zahniser.
•All the students who did the hard work.
•NSF for continuous support of INHS digitization efforts.
Editor's Notes
Photo courtesy of INHS Historic Image Archive
Harlow B. Mills in “A Century of Biological Research in Illinois” INHS Bulletin (Dec. 1958)
Photo courtesy of INHS Historic Image Archive
Harlow B. Mills in “A Century of Biological Research in Illinois” INHS Bulletin (Dec. 1958)
Photo courtesy of INHS Historic Image Archive
Harlow B. Mills in “A Century of Biological Research in Illinois” INHS Bulletin (Dec. 1958)
Photo courtesy of INHS Historic Image Archive
Harlow B. Mills in “A Century of Biological Research in Illinois” INHS Bulletin (Dec. 1958)
Photo courtesy of INHS Historic Image Archive
Harlow B. Mills in “A Century of Biological Research in Illinois” INHS Bulletin (Dec. 1958)
Me
Our method for capturing images of drawers is different and we think this will be one of the most innovative aspects of our project. Here we’re taking the approach similar to one that has been adopted at a few other institutions (e.g., NCSU, BMNH) in which a high resolution image of the entire drawer is captured by first moving a camera over the drawer in a grid pattern, capturing lots of close-up photos of different parts of the drawer and then stitching these together into a single gigapixel-scale image. Our system captures this basic top-down view of the drawer, but the delta robot we’re using is more flexible in its movements so we are also able to capture images from multiple perspectives. So, for example, if, in addition to the top-down images we also capture images at a 45 degree angle from front, back, left and right sides of the drawer, this will enable us to provide a partial 3D reconstruction of the drawer that will allow virtual tilting. This is important because in a top down view, the specimens often obscure parts of the labels pinned beneath them. If we are able to virtually tilt the image, we can reveal more of the top label, as well as labels pinned farther down, in addition to showing more of the specimen itself.
I’ll close by just reminding you that, although it doesn’t yet have a lot of content, InvertNet.org is up and running. Registration is available and open to all, so I urge you to join us.
