Leap, crawl or slither, it needs a picture
By Suzanne Bohan
Whip out your smart phone, snap a photo of a frog or lizard, and you could deliver crucial informational about the hopping and crawling creatures whose numbers are declining worldwide.
This month, UC Berkeley and Stanford University researchers helped launch the second phase of a "BioBlitz" race to photograph every amphibian and reptile species -- about 16,500 in all -- and record their locations with the camera's GPS.
The campaign's success relies on amateur photographers everywhere in the world taking pictures in places scientists have neither the money nor the time to visit. The experts review the photos online....
Both the Global Reptile and the Global Amphibian BioBlitz are powered by a website called iNaturlist.org, developed by some UC Berkeley students [School of Information master's students Jessica Kline, Ken-ichi Ueda, and Nathan Agrin, MIMS '08]. They teamed with Stanford researchers and conservation organizations to expand it.
iNaturalist.org relies on the public's enthusiasm for sharing photos on Facebook, Flickr and other social networking sites....
NOTE: iNaturalist was a School of Information master's final project in 2008.