Locations and specimens

Specimen data in a Scratchpad conform to the Darwin Core (version 1.2.1) format recommended by TDWG (the Taxonomic Databases working group) and GBIF.

They are separated into two content types: location and specimen, which allows you to connect different specimens at the same location.

Adding a location

  1. From the Admin menu go to Content
../_images/AdminContentLoc.jpg
  1. Click Add next to Location

  2. Enter a LOCATION IDENTIFIER. The location identifier needs to be unique because it is used for referencing this location while adding specimens.

    Either click on the Point tab for the map to add a point to the map with a left mouse click (delete is with right click) or enter the latitude and longitude in decimal degrees (coordinate system WGS84) in the field below the map.

    ../_images/AddLocationMap.jpg
  3. Click on the Extra Fields tab for additional optional fields.

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  1. Select a COUNTRY from the drop down menu

  2. Use the LOCALITY field to enter information that is not covered in any of the other fields

  3. Click Save

    fig:Location node

    Location node

Adding a specimen

  1. From the Admin menu go to Content

  2. Click the Add link next to Specimen/Observation.

  3. There are five different vertical tabs:

    • Required
    • Taxonomy
    • Collection
    • Miscellaneous
    • Location

    Each of these tabs has different fields that can optionally be completed in order to create a new specimen record.

  4. Fill out the fields under the Required tab. The two code fields together with the catalogue number generate a unique ID for this specimen record that is used as the specimen title

    ../_images/AddSpecimenRequired.jpg
  5. The Taxonomy tab contains the basic information about the identification of your specimen. The important field here is the second one, TAXONOMIC NAME, which is linked directly to all your site’s vocabularies

  6. Fill in the information under the Collection and Miscellaneous tabs

  7. Under the Location tab, select the location you created earlier.

    If you haven’t created a Location previously you may add one here by clicking on Create a new Location and use it here option. This new Location will be available to use for other specimens/observations in the future.

  8. In addition to the fields above, you can also add a media file to your specimen record

    ../_images/Specimen.jpg
  9. Click Save

You will be redirected to view your specimen, including thumbnails of any media you attached and a map of the location.

If you tagged the specimen with a taxonomy term, you can now find the specimen records under the Specimens tab of the classification view.

Cloning specimen

Click on the Clone tab to create a similar specimen from the same location by just changing the data in the CATALOGUE NUMBER field.

In practice most people will (at least initially) want to enter locality and specimen records in bulk - see Import specimens.