Viewing post #936979 by vitrsna

Yes, i knew you would have an interesting perspective on the subject The neotropical region has an unfathomable number of plants and insects that can only be identified in a laboratory. I am accustomed to hearing that the "genus" is the closest we can get in terms of a true id. George Beccaloni, etc, of the Natural History Museum in London put together (bi-linqually in English and Spanish) a "Catalogue of the hostplants of the Neotropical butterflies". When i first heard about this work, i could hardly believe and anyone, even with a group, could possibly put together such a catalogue. I looked everywhere for this book and was told i would need to either talk to George Beccaloni or the publishers (S.E.A. in Spain) to obtain a copy so i wrote to both places. George was on sabbatical at the time but i received a copy from the S.E.A. in Spain. I heard from George some time later, told him i had received a copy from the publisher and congratulated him on what must have been a very difficult project. I also mentioned how delighted i was to discover this work and how much i appreciate and reference it. He was so grateful to hear of my appreciation, all of a sudden we were "colleagues" (which of course we are most certainly not ). He told me it was the most difficult and challenging task he had ever set about, not to mention just plain miserable. After this work, he ditched neotropical, butterflies, and hostplants and has now turned his attention to Cockroaches.

I agree that ATP could not get close to a credible bug database, at the same time i think of all the ID's being done on bugs forum, as well as the butterflies, bees, and other garden insects threads that it is a little bit sad not to catalogue that info into a database where it might be found again, useful to someone. Information tends to be lost if it remains on the threads, but this is not really an agenda for me to champion or nix...just mildly interested.