Digitizing the Culicidae collection of Naturalis Biodiversity Center, with a special focus on the former Bonne-Wepster subcollection.

Abstract

Natural history collections contain a wealth of information on species diversity, distribution and ecology. However, due to historical and practical constraints, this valuable information is not always available to researchers. Our project aimed at unlocking data handwritten in notebooks owned by Johanna Bonne-Wepster, a Culicidae researcher. These handwritten notes refer to specimens labeled with a number only. The notebooks were scanned and entered into a Google spreadsheet. The specimens were provided with a unique identifier, labeled with the information from the notebooks and the data exported to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. In addition, the type specimens were photographed. Besides Johanna Bonne-Wepster's collection, mosquitoes from the former Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijk Historie collection and the former Zoölogisch Museum Amsterdam Nederland collection were digitized. All specimens are now housed at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center museum in Leiden. This paper describes the efforts to mobilize this data and the problems we encountered.