More heartbreaking stories out of Wabakimi www.snnewswatch.com/local-news/o...

Microphorella shorthousei sp. nov 😍 Brooks & Cumming doi.org/10.11646/zoo...

Temagami, Ontario. Hiked the tallest point in the Province called the Ishpatina Ridge. And, one day was gruelling: 9 portages (double carrying) and a 16km paddle.

Turned over the food barrel and am off to the Ishpatina Ridge in Temagami tomorrow for a 7-day solo adventure. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishpati...

Completed the “Nellie Lake Loop” in Killarney Provincial Park, Ontario Canada with my youngest son. Excellent route but with lengthy portages. “We hiked through the forest with a canoe on our heads.”

After 5 years as an idea in my head, I finally built it. Introducing georeference.it: an open-source platform for collaborative georeferencing of GBIF specimens. Help improve biodiversity data through community georeferencing, validation and error detection. Feedback welcome! 🌍 georeference.it

Looking forward to my annual father and son canoe trip on this upcoming post-Canada Day weekend. Any guesses?

⭐ A huge milestone for the biodiversity data standards community! 🥳 After years of collaborative work, the Darwin Core Conceptual Model and Data Package Guide (DwC-DP) have officially been ratified! ✅ 👉 Curious about what this means in practice?🔗www.tdwg.org/news/20... @tdwg.org

Just received a lovely email from the journal #AnnalsOfBotany to say our article "Wikidata for botanists: benefits of collaborating and sharing Linked Open Data" is amongst the most-read of their recent articles. I'm quite proud of this! doi.org/10.1093/aob/... #Wikidata #Botany

He’s still there! El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and now Panama. Using his own funds on a shoestring, hostel to hostel, feeding himself, hitchhiking and bus rides. And, in a little over a week, he’s taking a 12-person, 50’ sailboat to Colombia en route to Ecuador and Peru.

Sketched out a 6-night canoe loop July 7–13 to the Ishpatina Ridge en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishpati... at the tail end of a 3-night trip to Nellie Lake in Killarney Prov. Park with my youngest son. This might be a solo trip unless there's a taker, which would make it my longest solo by a day.

Crossref has hit 2 billion citation links - connections between research that help scholars discover, trace, and build on existing work. Dataset and full story: https://doi.org/10.64000/8cekz-69m52 #citations #scholarlypublishing

Nominations now open for ORCID Board seats: 👉 https://info.orcid.org/nominations-now-open-for-orcid-board-elections-2027/ + ORCID's Researcher Advisory Council: 👉 https://info.orcid.org/calling-all-researchers-orcid-researcher-advisory-council-nominations-now-open/ 📅 Nominations due 26 June!

It is with deep sorrow and profound love that we announce the passing of Sonny Rollins. The Saxophone Colossus died this afternoon at his home in Woodstock, NY at the age of 95. 1/2

What do I wear on my feet for a canoe trip? Stephan Kesting does a great job describing the maddening decision-making process, youtu.be/9g8M05sd11g?...

My sleep system in the boreal forest is a tarp and bug net; perfect for canoe travel on boreal lakes because the understory always has openings where cushiony club mosses and pine needles are abundant. Unlike a tent, I can find semi-protected spots to watch storms, sunsets, and the northern lights.

Kirkpatrick / Blue Lake ice-out, 6-night spring canoe loop in the Algoma Region near Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada via logging roads with @cabbageleek.bsky.social was a tough one but well worth the physical effort on long portages and the bug-less but restless, nightly chill.

🚀 The 2026 Ebbe Nielsen Challenge is OPEN! Have an idea, tool or prototype that uses GBIF biodiversity data to advance open science, research or policy? Submit an entry and compete for a share of €20,000 in prizes 💸 ⭐ Deadline: Friday 26 June 2026 (23:59 CEST) 👉 gbif.link/ENC-2026

The #TDWG2026 Call for Abstracts deadline for submissions is fast approaching on 🗓️ 20 May 2026, 23:59 UTC-12. There’s still time 🕐 but act fast ⚡️, only two weeks left! Conference Theme: 🔬 & 🤖 Research and Robot-ready Biodiversity Data Standards. More info: 🔗 tdwg.link/call-for-abstracts

Great time paddling and hiking around the Barron Canyon & the Cascades of Eastern Algonquin Prov. Park this weekend. Ran a nice pushy little Class 1 rapid & felt the first rush of the season. Next up in a few weeks is chasing wriggly trout with @cabbageleek.bsky.social near Elliot Lake, Ontario.

In case you missed it, Joe Miller's @amsocplanttaxon.bsky.social @gbif.org lecture on data integration, extended specimens, and building community around collections is posted on the ASPT YouTube channel... check it out! I found it super-exciting. www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Rea...

@siobhanleachman.bsky.social (@wikimediaaotearoa.bsky.social) and @svmering.bsky.social (@mfnberlin.bsky.social) share the vital role BHL played in their groundbreaking project surfacing the work of #WomenInScience who have had been honoured in the genera names of flowering plants. #BHLDay2026 🧪 📖 🌱

Annual weekend, birthday, ice-out canoe trip starts Friday and I’m already packed. The most important thing is a small, waterproof ditch kit affixed to my PFD so I can get a fire going as quickly as possible in the event I or someone else flips into the water.

Register today for the next @amsocplanttaxon.bsky.social webinar featuring Dr. Joe Miller (@gbif.org). Dr. Miller will present his talk “GBIF: Data Integration Towards the Extended Specimen” on Friday, May 1 at 12pm ET. And please spread the word! us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

The TDWG 2026 Call for Abstracts is now open! Deadline for submissions is 🗓️ 20 May 2026, 23:59 UTC-12. Submit an abstract for a presentation or poster at #TDWG2026 Conference Theme: 🔬 & 🤖 Research and Robot-ready Biodiversity Data Standards. More info: 🔗 tdwg.link/call-for-abstracts

Species descriptions should not be confined to "summary" PDFs only providing access to a fraction of the data underlying the conclusions. We here argue for "digitally native species" built around structured, specimen-linked, machine-actionable evidence from day one. rdcu.be/fcbwh

As our university is undergoing restructuring, its partnership with the natural history museum where I work, the Academy of Natural Sciences, is in jeopardy. If you value the involvement of science museums in the community, please consider checking out this petition. c.org/Db5WKdZSQ8

Siobhan Leachman is a New Zealand citizen scientist, open knowledge advocate and prolific Wikimedian whose work focuses on natural history. She connects museum collections and biodiversity data with the public and champions open access. 🧵⬇️ (1/2)

Happy to see @rdmpage.bsky.social make progress on this iphylo.blogspot.com/2026/03/simp.... I like the "simplicity" of the interface & the cleaner approach Claude AI took with dependencies. And, tests! The original SimpleMappr relied on thousands of unit tests, which contributed to its 18yr run.

New purchase for canoe trips to help dissolve my earthly worries.

Linking #biodiversity #data is key to answering urgent research questions - but messy scientific names make it hard. Misspellings, synonyms, name changes... See the proposed new #framework to help users pick the optimal workflow and tool for their needs 👇 #taxonomic #databases #biodiversity

It's been 3wks since my 18yr old son stuffed a backpack and took a one-way flight by himself to Bélize. He's now in Guatemala, on his way to Xela, and then onward for Semana Santa en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semana_... in Antigua. Oh to be young again.

I've just had a letter published in Nature! My co-authors and I briefly advocate for biodiversity knowledge experts to contribute not just to #Wikipedia but also to #Wikidata and #WikiCommons. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Ok folks do you have any suggestions for papers that used #wikidata and #entomology collection data? I’m thinking not just collector data or citation data - though also gratefully received - but trait data, other identifier linking etc.

Fresh Costa Rican pineapples, Peruvian mangoes and limes and Greek kiwis. All for the dehydrator for Canadian canoe tripping granola breakfasts.

Inspired by @rdmpage.bsky.social and his use of Claude to port SimpleMappr, been experimenting on a port from the ruby-based dwc_agent collector name parser to one in Go github.com/bionomia/dwc.... Boosted @bionomia.net processing ~50X, but Claude often falters on full parity & it skips tests.

You could say there’s a problem when your basement spare bedroom has become the paddle gear room, but I don’t 😀

Apologies for mass tagging, but you all replied to @dshorthouse.bsky.social about the demise of SimpleMappr. I've used Claude Code port David's app to a modern platform. I'd benefit from hearing from SimpleMappr users whether this port is "good enough" to be a viable replacement.

Sadly librarians who are thirsty for respect after years ignored by faculty, and dismissed by vendors are sometimes willing to overlook serious product deficiencies in exchange for being treated as valued intellectual partners by vendors. The bar for earning that loyalty can be surprisingly low

Regrettably, I have decided to decommission SimpleMappr, www.simplemappr.net on September 1, 2026. You may read about its origins, what others have accomplished in its 18 year run, and the reasons why I must turn it off in a document I wrote last night bit.ly/simplemappr.

Taxonomists: If you liked the old TAXACOM mailing list, we've restarted it. You can sign up, here: groups.google.com/g/taxacom Please share widely! We don't have access to the old lists. If you know any taxonomists, let them know, and pass it on. #science #academia #taxonomy

Slowly adding content to bionames.org and tweaking the interface. Hope page loads faster now and looks a little better on mobile. Lots of DOIs and PDFs for taxonomic papers, but so much to do. Half a million names linked to DOIs, wish it were more.

Levelled up my cast iron cooking to help clear up the fridge before a big move. Quiche!

📢 Call for submissions: "Beyond Digitization: Open Digital Curation of Collections-based Biodiversity Data." This topical collection aims to explore how #AI and human annotations can enhance #biodiversity #data and flow back to source systems. 📅 Deadline: 1 Sept 2026 Details 👇

🎓 Student job alert! Are you studying in #Copenhagen, have an interest in open data and scientific literature and want to make some extra cash💰 ⏰ 10-12 hours per week 💸 Competitive hourly wage 😍 Flexible hours 📍 Deadline: 27 February 2026 🔗 gbif.link/student-job

A parable for generative AI youtu.be/TWl-3vzVwwE?...

Not been in a good place the last several weeks. I have to continually remind myself that ruminating rarely works and that there is an unproductive limit to problem solving when solutions always affect family, friends, and colleagues. ❤️

📣 Call for sessions for TDWG 2026 You're invited to submit a proposal for an organized session at TDWG 2026 in #Oslo, Norway. Conference theme: 🤖 Research & robot-ready biodiversity data standards ⭐Deadline 26 Feb 2026, 10:59 GMT +1 Learn more: 🔗 tdwg.link/call-for-ses...