Mammoth Project to Digitize the Tree of Life Could Uncover Thousands of New Species
Microsoft's Photosynth software will help scan and catalog 3-D models of specimens for analysis over the Web, anywhere Over the past 20 years, Richard Pyle figures he's discovered 100 new species of fish. But he's identified only one fifth of them. Pyle, an ichthyologist at Bishop Museum in Hawaii, isn't a slacker-he spent hundreds of hours tracking down those fish. It's just that proving that a new species is unique can be as tough as finding it in the first place. "There are literally thousands of new species sitting in storage at museums," says Quentin Wheeler, a renowned taxonomist and founder of the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University. Identifying these species isn't just to satisfy curiosity; we need a clear understanding of species in order to best organize conservation efforts. Here's the snag: To verify a new species, a taxonomist must examine the type specimens-the preserved representative samples...