Auf zoosphere.net werden u.a. Insekten aus dem Museum für Naturkunde Berlin online abgebildet, inklusive 3D-Aufnahmen. Verwandte Projekte sind The Atlas of Living Australia, The Encyclopedia of Life und the Integrated Digitized Biocollections (via The New York Times):
«In Berlin, the natural history museum’s collection consists of more than 35,000 drawers holding about 15 million individual specimens. So far, the team has scanned about 10,000 drawers. Some specimens are selected for high-definition scanning, which will allow scientists from anywhere in the world to examine these colorful creatures in remarkable detail, even to maneuver them on screen for close scrutiny.
“We want everyone to see them, the public and researchers, to see what’s in the collection,” said Bernhard Schurian, an imaging specialist at the museum who is overseeing the technical aspects of the project.
It is slow, painstaking work.
Each specimen drawer must be carefully removed from one of hundreds of alder wood cabinets filling six floors of the museum. The drawers are dusted off, and a small brush is sometimes used to tidy each delicate specimen.»