Entomology in Christchurch • May 2024 – edit
Several related projects have coalesced on the subject of entomology, involving iNaturalist, the illustrations of Des Helmore, and the collections of Canterbury Museum.
iNaturalist and the City Nature Challenge edit
A front-page New Zealand news story in March was the rediscovery after 65 years of the moth known as the Frosted Phoenix (Titanomis sisyrota) by a Swedish tourist in Stewart Island / Rakiura. After uploading his photographs to iNaturalist on returning home, the unidentified large moth was confirmed as T. sisyrota by a New Zealand lepidopterist, and garnered newspaper and TV coverage. I contacted the photographer and (after explaining copyright law, Creative Commons, and iNaturalist's incompatible default settings), convinced him to change his photo license so the image could be used on the moth's Wikipedia page.
This example was used at the launch of the annual biobliz event City Nature Challenge, which included three of the most prolific iNaturalist observers in Christchurch—I made sure they had all changed their default iNaturalist licence to one compatible with Commons. This is the beginning of an education project working with iNaturalist NZ, whose board is based in Christchurch, to show citizen scientists the advantages of using a truly open licence.
Des Helmore images edit
When I was New Zealand Wikipedian at Large I worked with Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research to upload over 1000 insect drawings by retired biological illustrator Des Helmore (creating a Wikipedia article about him in the process). These have been gradually deployed across different Wikimedia projects over the last five years, and now feature on nearly 2,000 Wikipedia articles and receive over 150,000 page views a month (partial data from GLAMorgan).
There are several possibilities for increasing the use, impact, ans appreciation of these images. The Featured Picture designation in Wikimedia Commons is most commonly used for excellent photographs, but I began submitting the best Helmore images to it: an image of the Cook Strait giant wētā Deinacrida rugosa was accepted as a featured picture on 22 April, and will at some point feature on the home page of Commons. Helmore image candidates are so far:
File:ORTH Anostostomidae Deinacrida rugosa in habitat.png✓ accepted 22 April- File:HEMI Membracidae Acanthucus trispinifer.png
- File:COLE Scarabaeidae Costelyra zealandica 1.png
- File:DIPT Calliphoridae Calliphora quadrimaculata f.png
- File:HYME Formicidae Huberia striata.png
Other possibilities include:
- A Helmore edit-a-thon, working through all the images to tag them with the correct date, check for taxonomic changes or spelling mistakes, and see if they're being used in relevant articles
- Submitting images that are excellent illustrations for Wikipedia articles to the Featured Picture section of Wikipedia's home page
- Reusing the openly-licenced images in products such as t-shirts, postcards, and fridge magnets
- Approaching Landcare about securing other illustrations from its Fauna of New Zealand series under an open licence
- Giving a presentation on reuse of the Helmore images and open licensing in general to the New Zealand Entomological Society conference in Christchurch in August
New Zealand cockroaches in the genus Celatoblatta edit
As part of Wikipedian at Large outreach, I gave a presentation to the Canterbury branch of the New Zealand Entomological Society on 19 March on "Entomology and Wikipedia". After the presentation I met emeritus entomologist Peter Johns, who continues to work part time at Canterbury Museum in the insect collection. He lamented the coverage of NZ cockroaches on Wikipedia, and offered to supply better photographs. Coincidentally, the native cockroach Celatoblatta quinquemaculata featured on Critter of the Week shortly afterwards, and I discovered none of the Celatoblatta species had a Wikipedia article. I proposed the project of working through Johns's 1966 revision of the group The Cockroaches of New Zealand (Q125308748), creating articles and improving Wikidata for each species, sourcing photos from iNaturalist and researchers, and making Wikidata items for all the works cited by and that cite that 1966 paper. Canterbury Museum holds many of the type specimens, has adopted a CC BY 4.0 licence for its natural history collection objects, and is interested in sharing images via Wikipedia—this could be a good trial project.
- Celatoblatta anisoptera Johns, 1966 – New Zealand
- Celatoblatta brunni Johns, 1966 – Chatham Islands
- Celatoblatta fuscipes Johns, 1966 – New Zealand
- Celatoblatta hesperia Johns, 1966 – New Zealand
- Celatoblatta immunda (Shelford, 1911) – Queensland
- Celatoblatta laevispinata Johns, 1966 – New Zealand
- Celatoblatta montana Johns, 1966 – New Zealand
- Celatoblatta nigrifrons (Chopard, 1924) – New Caledonia
- Celatoblatta notialis Johns, 1966 – New Zealand
- Celatoblatta pallidicauda Johns, 1966 – New Zealand
- Celatoblatta papuae (Shaw, 1925) – New Guinea, Solomon Islands
- Celatoblatta peninsularis Johns, 1966 – New Zealand
- Celatoblatta perpolita (Mackerras, 1968) – Queensland
- Celatoblatta punctipennis (Chopard, 1924) – New Caledonia
- Celatoblatta quinquemaculata Johns, 1966 – New Zealand
- Celatoblatta sedilloti (Bolívar, 1883) – New Zealand
- Celatoblatta shawi (Princis, 1966) – Queensland
- Celatoblatta subcorticaria Johns, 1966 – New Zealand
- Celatoblatta tryoni (Shaw, 1925) – Queensland
- Celatoblatta undulivitta (Walker, 1868) – New Zealand
- Celatoblatta vulgaris Johns, 1966 – New Zealand
- Celatoblatta zonata (Princis, 1954) – Australia