Article
Version 1
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A reference database of reptile images
Version 1
: Received: 16 July 2024 / Approved: 17 July 2024 / Online: 17 July 2024 (10:59:17 CEST)
How to cite: Uetz, P. H.; Patel, M.; Gbadamosi, Z.; Nguyen, A.; Shoope, S. A reference database of reptile images. Preprints 2024, 2024071416. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202407.1416.v1 Uetz, P. H.; Patel, M.; Gbadamosi, Z.; Nguyen, A.; Shoope, S. A reference database of reptile images. Preprints 2024, 2024071416. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202407.1416.v1
Abstract
While there are millions of reptile images available online, they are not well organized and not easily findable, accessible, interoperable, or reproducible (FAIR). More importantly, they are not standardized and thus hardly comparable. Here we present a reference database of more than 14,000 standardized images of 1,045 reptile species (969 lizard and 76 snake species), that are based on preserved specimens in 20 different collections, including 533 type species of genera and type specimens of 72 species. All images were taken with standardized views, including dorsal and ventral body shots as well as dorsal, ventral, and lateral views of the heads and other body parts. Although only 11 out of the 20 collections are cross-referenced in Vertnet, some others are indexed in GBIF, and this fraction will certainly grow in the near future. The utility of this and similar image collections will further grow with additional material and further cross-referencing, e.g., to DNA sequence databases or citizen science projects. The images are searchable and freely available on Morphobank.org (Project 5121) and on Figshare.com.
Keywords
museum; collection; type specimen; morphology; squamata
Subject
Biology and Life Sciences, Animal Science, Veterinary Science and Zoology
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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