{"id":1542,"date":"2014-04-04T20:54:37","date_gmt":"2014-04-04T20:54:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dolly.jorgensenweb.net\/nordicnature\/?p=1542"},"modified":"2014-04-04T20:54:37","modified_gmt":"2014-04-04T20:54:37","slug":"missing-meta-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dolly.jorgensenweb.net\/nordicnature\/?p=1542","title":{"rendered":"Missing meta-data"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today I visited the\u00a0Naturhistoriska riksmuseet<\/a> in Stockholm. Although my visit included the usual thing of looking around the exhibits, this time I also got to go behind the scenes in the entomology department.\u00a0I got to see the museum’s collection of\u00a0Platypsyllus castoris<\/em>, the beaver beetle that I have\u00a0

\"The<\/a>
The Platypsyllus castoris Rits. collection at the Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet, Stockholm. The three specimens on the right were given by Skansen to the museum in December 1923. The one on the left was labelled “Delta du Rh\u00f4ne” with no date. Photo by D. J\u00f8rgensen.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

The collection at NHRM includes only four specimens. Three of them are labeled “Skansen Dec. 1923”. The fourth is labeled “Delta du Rh\u00f4ne”. This isn’t a lot of metadata to go on. So what can we know about these specimens?<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The researcher’s view through the microscope of one of the beaver beetle specimens at Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet, Stockholm. Photo by D. J\u00f8rgensen<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Since beaver beetles only come from beavers, that’s the obvious place to look. Thus the question is: In December 1923, what beavers were in Skansen?<\/p>\n

Skansen had acquired\u00a0a pair of North American beavers (Castor canadensis<\/em>) in 1910. These beavers died some time in 1923, which we know because the year-end report for 1923<\/a>\u00a0includes\u00a0a comment that “two Canadian beavers died”. Their deaths are probably attributable to a disease which broke out in late 1922 from hares imported from Finland. A letter from the Suvenniemi Zoologiska Station\u00a0director to Skansen director Alarik Behm dated 28 November 1922 acknowledged Skansen’s notice of the dead hares and a bacteriological sample sent to them. Skansen lost many small mammals to the outbreak from fall 1922 through 1923. It’s unclear when during the year the Canadian beavers died — possibly the beetles were collected from them in December 1923 — but it seems unlikely.<\/p>\n

Skansen also had European beavers (Castor fiber<\/em>) in 1923. In February 1923, one beaver was imported from Norway and held at Skansen before release in northern V\u00e4sterbotten. That beaver died during the spring from intestinal inflammation. Then two more were bought from Norway in September 1923. Some time by January 1924, these two died from the hare’s disease. The timing of their deaths means that they would be the most likely source of the beetles.<\/p>\n

We can guess, then, the three Skansen Platypsyllus castoris<\/em> specimens were collected from European beavers that had recently been caught in Norway and were destined for reintroduction in northern Sweden, but who died before they could be released.<\/p>\n

The other beetle’s label was written in French: “Delta du Rh\u00f4ne”. It was likely given by someone from France to the museum, but it is unclear when that would have been. The insects were first collected in\u00a0France\u2019s Rh\u00f4ne river reaches in 1883, so it must have been after that. Since the label says it was from the Rh\u00f4ne delta, it certainly was from a wild European beaver. At this point, that’s all I can deduce.<\/p>\n

The moral of the story? Make sure you write down what kind of beaver you collect a beaver beetle from. Meta-data matters.<\/p>\n

** Special thanks go out to Senior Curator\u00a0Johannes Bergsten for showing me the specimens and re-gluing the ones that jumped off their perches when I tried to get a closer look.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I visited the\u00a0Naturhistoriska riksmuseet in Stockholm. Although my visit included the usual thing of looking around the exhibits, this time I also got to go behind the scenes in the entomology department.\u00a0I got to see the museum’s collection of\u00a0Platypsyllus castoris, the beaver beetle that I have\u00a0written about before.   The collection at NHRM includes only four specimens. Three of them are labeled “Skansen Dec. 1923”. The fourth is labeled “Delta du Rh\u00f4ne”. This isn’t a lot of metadata to go on. So what can we know about these specimens? Since beaver beetles only come from beavers, that’s the obvious place to look. Thus the question is: In December 1923, what beavers were in Skansen? Skansen had acquired\u00a0a pair of North American beavers (Castor canadensis) in 1910. These beavers died some time in 1923, which we know because the year-end report for 1923\u00a0includes\u00a0a comment that “two Canadian beavers died”. Their deaths are probably attributable to a disease which broke out in late 1922 from hares imported from Finland. A letter from the Suvenniemi Zoologiska Station\u00a0director to Skansen director Alarik Behm dated 28 November 1922 acknowledged Skansen’s notice of the dead hares and a bacteriological sample sent to them. Skansen lost many small mammals to the outbreak from fall 1922 through 1923. It’s unclear when during the year the Canadian beavers died — possibly the beetles were collected from them in December 1923 — but it seems unlikely. Skansen also had European beavers (Castor fiber) in 1923. In February 1923, one beaver was imported from Norway and held at Skansen before release in northern V\u00e4sterbotten. That beaver died during the spring from intestinal inflammation. Then two more were bought from Norway in September 1923. Some time by January 1924, these two died from the hare’s disease. The timing of their deaths means that they would be the most likely source of the beetles. We can guess, then, the three Skansen Platypsyllus castoris specimens were collected from European beavers that had recently been caught in Norway and were destined for reintroduction in northern Sweden, but who died before they could be released. The other beetle’s label was written in French: “Delta du Rh\u00f4ne”. It was likely given by someone from France to the museum, but it is unclear when that would have been. The insects were first collected in\u00a0France\u2019s Rh\u00f4ne river reaches in 1883, so it must have been after that. Since the label says it was from the Rh\u00f4ne delta, it certainly was from a wild European beaver. At this point, that’s all I can deduce. The moral of the story? Make sure you write down what kind of beaver you collect a beaver beetle from. Meta-data matters. ** Special thanks go out to Senior Curator\u00a0Johannes Bergsten for showing me the specimens and re-gluing the ones that jumped off their perches when I tried to get a closer look.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1540,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beaver","category-museum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dolly.jorgensenweb.net\/nordicnature\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dolly.jorgensenweb.net\/nordicnature\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dolly.jorgensenweb.net\/nordicnature\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dolly.jorgensenweb.net\/nordicnature\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dolly.jorgensenweb.net\/nordicnature\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1542"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/dolly.jorgensenweb.net\/nordicnature\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1548,"href":"https:\/\/dolly.jorgensenweb.net\/nordicnature\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1542\/revisions\/1548"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dolly.jorgensenweb.net\/nordicnature\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dolly.jorgensenweb.net\/nordicnature\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dolly.jorgensenweb.net\/nordicnature\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dolly.jorgensenweb.net\/nordicnature\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}