[Taxacom] the hurdle for all biodiv informatics initiatives

[Hans Henderickx]

>I doubt that even a single decent Malaise trap sample has ever been FULLY 
>sorted and indentified and curated.

Stephen,

It was as early as 1983 that D.F. Owen wrote "If a trap is left at the same 
site for a whole season an enormous amount of information is obtained. It is 
possible to compare sites and to compare seasons, but impossible to do the 
necessary taxonomic work on all the insects collected". That is why the 8 
authors of the book 228 pages book "Brand-Stof. Een inventarisatie van de 
Entomofauna van het Natuurreservaat 'De Brand' in 1990 / red.: J.W.A. van 
Zuilen et al, Tilburg 1996, ISBN 90-9010129-2" proved otherwise: they 
managed to identify all 90344 Arthropoda from a single malaisetrap to 
species level (2142 species). Not in a single sunday afternoon I suppose.

Hans Henderickx