This is neat. A group of ichthyologists faced a serious problem after they completed a survey of fish diversity in Guyana: paperwork. They'd collected over 5000 specimens over the course of their expedition, but they needed to identify them before they could get export permits to bring them back to their labs in the United States. They had a week. The local libraries were inadequate for the job. But they had internet access.
So they loaded photographs of their fish onto Facebook, and let their friends and colleagues help them. Fortunately, the friends and colleagues of a bunch of ichthyologists include a high proportion of other ichthyologists. The whole story is on the National Museum of Natural History's blog.
H/T to John Sullivan for pointing out the story!
Thanks for the nice write-up! -- Brian Sidlauskas
Posted by: Bsidlauskas | March 24, 2011 at 12:21 PM
Brian, it's a really neat idea. So neat that I may steal it someday for my own research...
Posted by: DianeAKelly | March 24, 2011 at 02:04 PM
By all means!
Posted by: Bsidlauskas | April 05, 2011 at 03:47 PM