Finally! Search by river/lake is there...

[MatsP]

Jools has kindly added the new files needed to search by river/lake.

The search featuer can be found here:
http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/search.php

I've spent quite a lot of time entering the data, and I believe almost all of it is correect. However, there's still some work needed:
1. Add more data to the nearly 700 species that DON'T have any data (some of those will not have data anytime soon, as they are of "unknown origin").
2. Fix up any errors made (and I know of some, but the page to actually remove/change the data wasn't there until this afternoon). If you do see any errors, please report them in the "Suggestions and bugs" forum.

Some statistics:
- There are nearly 2000 occurrence records.
- There are 1109 species in the Cat-eLog with occurrence data.
- There are 690 species in the Cat-eLog without occurrence data.
- There are nearly 500 "bodies of water" in the database.
- There are nearly 70 "political areas" in the database.

Some technical details:
The database consists of (for this purpose - there are other database parts involved in the catelog):
Species table.
Political area table (countries and continents)
Body of water table (rivers, lakes, oceans).
Occurrence table.

Each body of water has a political area attached to it.
The Occurrence table connects the species table with the body of water table.

The search

--
Mats

[Yann]

Hi Mats!!!

Big Big Thank you for all the hard work you have been pilling up lately!!!
the feature is really awsome!!
Great stuff!!!

Keep up the good work mate!!!
All the best
Yann

[Jools]

A BIG for Mats - really, this is a heck of a lot of work!

It also means that links to other species found in the same bodies of water. An example:

Go to

Otocinclus flexilis

in the Cat-eLog, go down to the "distribution" section and click on the Rio Uruguay link...

Nice eh?

Jools

[kcmt01]

Kudos to all those who contribute to this site! As a computer professional, I go to all kinds of websites all the time; my living depends on it. My fish are just a hobby, of course. I just have to say, this is one of the best sites on the web. You guys know your focus area, and provide excellent content. In the short time I've been a member, I have seen awesome improvements. It takes a lot to impress me; I'm impressed.

[bronzefry]

Amazing! Great work, one and all!
Amanda

[Shaun]

Amazing! Great feature for a great site!
Shaun

[snowball]

Great work Mats, hats off to you for taking the time. This will be a very useful tool.

[MatsP]

The current stats are:
- There are 2520 (+500) occurrence records.
- There are 1418 (+300) species in the Cat-eLog with occurrence data.
- There are 383 (-300) species in the Cat-eLog without occurrence data. [1]
- There are 683 (+180) "bodies of water" in the database.
- There are nearly 72 (+4) "political areas" in the database.

Of the remaining 383 species, the biggest families with "no data" are:

Loricariidae 150 (all undescribed)
Callichtyidae 106 (6 described)
Heptaperiidae 20 (3 described)
Mochokidae 13 (1 described)
Auchtenperidae 12 (all undescribed)
Ictaluridae 11 (all described)
Bagridae 10 (5 described)
There are another 18 families with less than 10 species in each family.

"Undescribed" species are species such as L/C-numbers, cf/aff. species or "completely undescribed", e.g. "Ancistrus sp(3)". These often don't have ANY data for where they are from.

I expect to be able to fill in another 15-20 species in the next week.

A large portion of the loricariidae is LDA-numbered fishes. These have (in the Cat-eLog) no good data on them. Anyone have a source for LDA-number's capture location?

[There are also several L-numbers that say "imported from Brazil", which is a little bit too unspecific for me to enter it into the database!]

--
Mats