World Catalog of Orthopteroid Insects: A Multimedia Guide to the Species

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9870226 Otte Taxonomy provides the core knowledge-base on which all discussion of biological diversity hinges. Currently only the most superficial kinds of inventories and monitoring are possible because relatively few species are known (it is estimated that less than 13% of the species on Earth have yet been described), and because knowledge on those that have been named is so difficult to obtain from the literature. There is no comprehensive catalog of the 1.75 million known species, and 90% of the described species have never been included in regional accounts of biotas, or in identification manuals or modern monographs. In this project we will provide the scientific community with a complete internet-accessible catalog to all of the approximately 40,000 species of orthopteroid insects (an economically important group of insects that includes grasshoppers, crickets, mantids, and cockroaches) (http://viceroy.eeb.uconn.edu/Orthoptera/). The website constitutes a complete and fully referenced synonymic catalog to all species and subspecies of the world. It includes pictorial aids and species-specific sounds to aid in identification, and it will soon contain easy to follow pictorial keys to the major groups. It will be useful to anyone wishing to determine any species in this assemblage from anywhere on earth, and will be especially useful to those engaged in biodiversity surveys and monitoring. It will be possible for anyone with access to the web to reach into the world's great museums to view type specimens, exemplars, and diagnostic images from the original literature, and to listen to samples from their sound archives.