The Sahonagasy photo data base
An important basis for the conservation of Madagascar’s herpetofauna is a good and detailed knowledge on the distribution of all species. Mapping projects in Europe and North America largely rely on the survey work of volunteers who ideally cover a dense grid across a country or region and obtain semiquantitative data.
Such a detailed coverage is almost impossible in tropical countries. However, it still is possible to improve significantly the knowledge on the distribution ranges of species in rich tropical herpetofaunas by a good collaboration between professional biologists and amateurs, as exemplified by the South African frog and reptile mapping projects [L. R. Minter, M. Burger, J. A. Harrison, H. H. Braack, P. J. Bishop, D. Kloepfer (2004): Atlas and Red Data Book of the Frogs of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland.].
In Madagascar, many ecotourists, interested local people, consultants and researchers make interesting observations and of course obtain photographs of the amazing amphibian and reptile fauna of this hotspot for biodiversity conservation. In some cases they also visit sites that have not yet been explored herpetologically, and each of their species observations is relevant to understand the distribution ranges of rare as well as widespread species.
The Sahonagasy photo database will allow these data to become available to the scientific and amateeur community and to help with future assessments of the distribution ranges and conservation status of the species. This database allows everybody to register as contributor and to upload their photos of Malagasy amphibians and reptiles. Please provide, with the photos (under comments) detailed data on the locality, time and date of observation, and any other potentially interesting observation.
If you upload your photos, specialists will regularly check all the photos and, as a service to contributors, provide species identifications and comments on all your photos.
Please note: This data base is meant as a permanent repository of these photos. By submitting the pictures, you agree that the locality information contained in it might in the future be used in the context of conservation and distribution assessments. We will not, however, use your photos themselves in any publication. If you are concerned about copyright issue, please upload your pictures in lower resolution or provide them with a copyright mark.
We are aware that this data base is still experimental and needs improvement. Over the next months, the database, upload interface and informations for users will be complemented and improved.
Your contribution will be much appreciated!
Quick Tutorial
- During the upload process you should add basic information on the species ID, locality and if possible, geographical coordinates and date of your photograph. Since you can upload many pictures at once, it is easy to add these informations if you have many photos from the same locality, by copy-pasting the information from one "Caption" field to the next.
- Your pictures will then be displayed with the information that you provided.
- Later on, you can also add precise coordinates (in decimal coordinate format) to your pictures. You can use an online conversion tool such as:
http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/bickel/DDDMMSS-decimal.html to convert your coordinates in degrees-minutes-secods format into appropriate decimal coordinate format.
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