At the risk of sounding like (even more of a) stick-in-the-mud regarding the
value of vouchers, here is a great example of not always being able to trust photographic identifications of insects:
This is a real book, thankfully out of print, which has a
fly illustrating the cover. It was highlighted on the
Scientific American blog of Alex Wild in a post on misidentified insects in the media. Alex has his own excellent blog, Myrmecos, where he has shown that
even National Geographic isn't immune to these mistakes (nor
The Learning Channel, a Discovery company). Surely they should know better. And so should the "experts" at pest eradication companies around the country, but look at the array of
things that are not fire ants displayed on their web sites.
Unfortunately, mislabeled photos online often come back to haunt us, as the misidentifications may be passed on and
perpetuated. I'm not going to beat a dead horse here. I'll just say be careful when using photos to ID insects, don't just label something online if you aren't sure (ask for help!), and correct your mistakes in a timely manner.
[stands down from soapbox]
3 comments:
Sage advice. Thank you!!
I have an earlier version of that book and it actually has a BEE on it. Just goes to show that people who design the covers should have their work vetted before it goes into production.
Mark
nice information
good content
===========
web design
Post a Comment