Dr. Brian Fisher is changing the way scientists study ants
calacademy.org
SAN FRANCISCO (September 22, 2005) – It used to take scientists months – sometimes even years – to identify new ant species, since field guides are scarce and original species descriptions are often buried in obscure journals. But now, California Academy of Sciences entomologist Dr. Brian Fisher is putting ant identification on the fast track with the help of new technology from Google Earth. Fisher, the Chairman of the Academy’s Entomology Department, has assembled data and descriptions for thousands of species of ants from around the world and posted the information to a public Web site, antweb.org. From the Antweb site, scientists and ant aficionados alike can download the Google Earth program and plot all of the ants known to Antweb on a three dimensional, interactive globe of satellite images. This technology allows people to look up ants by location, rather than by name. For instance, if a team of scientists collects an ant in Argentina , they can pull up the South American map from Google Earth and rapidly determine whether or not the ant they found has ever been documented from that region before. Within a few months, Antweb users will also be able to create a virtual ant field guide for any geographic area defined in Google Earth.
“What is so interesting,” says Fisher, “is that we have been talking with NASA to try to create something like this for the scientific community, but in the end, it was a private group – Google – that came up with the tool.” Fisher has been so impressed with the support he has received from the Google Earth team that he is naming a new species of ant in their honor. The ant, Proceratium google, which he discovered during a recent trip to Madagascar, feeds exclusively on spider eggs. |
