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Random question regarding pictures (Fossils)

As they are not in the scope of BG I have only posted one insect fossil found at the fossil site of the Interpretive Center where I work. If people were interested is there a section where I could post some pictures for a time. I doesn't need to be permanent.

Thanks
Karl Volkman
Collections Manager
Stonerose Interpretive Center

Link to more discussion
on how to integrate photos of fossil arthropods into the pages of bugguide: 1 .

Fossils so far
The pictures I have added so far:

Coleoptera -


Coleoptera - Curculionoidea


Diptera - Bibionidae - cf Plecia


Hemiptera - Auchenorrhycha


Hemiptera - Pentatomoidae


Lepidoptera - Arctiidae


Neuroptera -
(to be frassed, see lower post)

Odonata -


Trichoptera -


Any insites as to better identification of a specimen is always welcome

 
Cool!
These are awesome! Thanks for posting!

Please, do not frass!
I have been waiting to see fossils for quite a while. They should stay in the guide, in my opinion. However there should be no date for them; that would be misleading.
They can go in the taxon they belong to, family, superfamily, whatever.

 
agreed
maybe add a category 'fossil' after Representative, Male, Female, Adult, Immature when adding an image.

 
Frassing
Ok,

At this point I will wait a week or so and then move them to the appropriate guide page if possible.

I would ask that I be allowed to frass this one

Dr. Bruce Archibald prefers that specimens which are describable not be published. As the opinion is this is a Neuroptera wing, Bruce will want to look and possibly describe it. Until such time I would like it frassed. Afterward I can reload it with the updated information.

Karl

 
Frassing, deleting
In such case you may consider deleting it altogether. Frass keeps the images visible for thirty days and it sounds like it would be better to satisfy Dr. Archibald request right away.

 
But
don't you think it would be appropriate to just have a "Fossil" section ?

 
sounds sensible to me
I agree with Brad, Martin, and Kenneth that a separate section is a good idea. Putting all fossil images in one location (such as here) would allow us to browse through the entire group "uncontaminated by live photos", and finding the fossils section would be as easy as finding the leaf mines section.

All taxonomic and other info could be included with each image, as in this example. We may find that 30-40 images (or some other number) on one page is enough. Beyond that number, we could create pages for orders, as needed, perhaps with a "fossil" prefix (fossilOdonata, fossilColeoptera, etc.) to avoid potential confusion with extant orders. If more than 30-40 (or whatever) images accumulate on any fossilOrder page, we could add fossilFamily pages etc., as needed. I don't think it has to be any more complicated than that. If Karl is willing, maybe he could become an editor and take care of fossil images at BugGuide?

 
I agree with Hartmut
It is more natural to keep fossils in their rightful place in the tree of life. Besides, you can easily find all fossils if you search: fossil.

 
Duplicate
Duplicate.

 
For a moment I thought
well, interesting idea, why not. Then I searched for the "Hawaii Section", rather difficult to find. Eggs are far more interesting in their proper taxonomic place, to the extent they've been identified, which is where they are now; the unidentified ones are in the "here" (see Robin's link).
As far as images of fossils are concerned, I'd rather see them filed at their taxonomic level, i.e. Karl has some images of Mecoptera (that page already exists), extinct Dinopanorpidae would have to be added, same for the described extinct spp. in that family.
Unidentified images of fossils submitted to bugguide would go the same way as those of extant organisms.

Perhaps I'm a lone voice, but I don't look at fossils as something separate from extant organisms but part of a continuum - the big evolutionary theatre.

 
We would agree with Beatriz
on this one. If all fossil images were put in their own section, we would have to create a mirror BugGuide with all the orders and families, or they would be dumped unceremoniously into one pot, as the images from Hawaii now are. No one would see them unless you happened to search on fossils or stumble onto them. Who can quickly say where the random insect egg images are on BugGuide? If these fossil images are placed in the guide at Order or Family, provided that exists for living insects, anyone looking at that Order would see them. That would be our vote.

 
Extinct Taxons
Most if not all specimens that I would be adding will eventually be described as extinct species in the future, though that process will be slow, as Dr. Bruce Archibald is working mainly with the Neuroptera, Hymenoptera, Mecoptera, Raphidioptera, Orthoptera, and a couple of random specimens. All are small orders compared to the Hemiptera and Coleoptera at the site. In Mecoptera we have such taxa as

Mecoptera - †Dinopanorpidae - Dinokanaga - Dinokanaga species

And in Neuroptera

Neuroptera - Hemerobioidea - Polystoechotidae (which we should have a guide page for anyway..) - †Polystoechotites - Polystoechotites species

Karl


edit: Most specimens at this point would be only to the Order or at best family level for now though....

 
Ok
I agree.

But what if that order doesn't exist....I guess someone would create it just like now ?

Frass would work
If you put something in Frass, it shows up in Recent for 30 days, then is deleted. Some contributors post images directly to Frass when they want to share something temporary. If you use this URL, you can post images directly to Frass:
http://bugguide.net/node/add/bgimage/9410

 
....
Why don't we have a section for fossil insects ? I think that would be very interesting.

 
i also agree
yeah there definately should be a section for fossils

 
At this point...
Well at this point I think I will put the pictures in ID request, though it still feels rather odd, and move them to frass after about a week.

edit: I have added pictures of the most common insect at the Republic beds and one of the Rarest.

 
I agree...
There should be a section on fossil insects... there are some fantastic insect yielding deposits in North America. Of course being a palaeoentomologist, I'm a little biased! :)

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