Saturday 21 July 2018

Collecting as 'Citizen Science'


'Citizen entomologists' are being recruited by the British Museum of Natural History and other organizations to take part in the Big Butterfly Count. The idea is to find 'productive' sites and get the butterflies, and using special killing jars turn them into collectable items, which (when they are stuck on pins and stored in cabinets) can be identified and arranged in an ephemeral personal collection. Any that are surplus will find a ready market among collectors through, for example, eBay. The more rare the species is, the more interesting, some finders are willing to donate specimens to museum collections.

Oh? They don't? They do not collect the butterflies, only look where they are and record their presence? So how would that be 'citizen science' then? Bonkers, no?

Vignette: A British collection

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Oh, those poor butterflies! How could somebody do that?

 
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