Biologists have historically documented their observations about the diversity of life in scientific journal articles, books, and field guides. Their work often includes descriptions paired with colorful, detailed illustrations or images of plants, animals, anatomy, and the environment. Field biologists also record their observations of nature in field notebooks. These notebooks can contain sketches of organisms as well as measurements, environmental data, and weather information.
MorphoSource
MorphoSource is an image repository for 3D media of the world’s scientific and cultural collections shared by museums and researchers. Users can view and download 2D and 3D media representing physical objects such as skeletons and fossils produced by CT, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), photogrammetry, laser scan, and other technologies.
Biodiversity Heritage Library
The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is an open access digital library and archive for the world’s literature on biodiversity. A consortium of museums and libraries, BHL is working to digitize and make publicly available the legacy print literature in their collections. Hundreds of thousands of titles and more than 60 million pages from as early as the 15th century are available to date.
California Phenology Network
The California Phenology Network is a collaborative project funded by the National Science Foundation to capture plant specimen images from the collections in 28 California universities, museums, and botanical gardens, including the UC Irvine Herbarium (IRVC) led by Dr. Peter Bowler. Digital images collected by the project are publicly available and include data on the timing of flowering or fruiting in California plants.
All About Birds
All About Birds is an online guide to North American birds produced by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The website features in-depth species information, photos, sounds of bird calls, videos, and range maps to help users identify bird species and contribute their observations to research projects.