A Guide to Searchable Databases Online

About the Biodiversity Weblift

This weblift is intended for scientists, conservationists and others who need information about species and their distributions. Its primary goal is to provide a convenient mechanism by which resource managers, scientists, conservationists, and citizens can make queries on searchable databases and other on-line resources that include information about various. The catalogue of biodiversity databases is being assembled by searching existing databases for key geographic terms. Institutions and their appropriate databases are listed below when they are found to include references to species from localities in Haiti or its marine jurisdiction. All of the resources that are listed below contain information on Haitian biodiversity. We welcome comments and input from users, whom we invite to suggest additional databases that we have not yet included. We are working to include data about all taxa that occur in Haiti. The links to biodiversity resources given below will connect users directly to the host institutions that maintain the databases. Links are provided at two or three hierarchical levels depending on the structure of the host institution's web site. There is always a link to the institution's homepage, and it should be consulted by users who are visiting the host web site for the first time. Whenever possible, we provide a link at an intermediate level that gives instructions for use of the search mechanism in that institution. At the third level, there is a link directly to the search form of the database. The third-level connections will be convenient for persons who are already familiar with online searchable databases.
		Scanned image of a herbarium sheet showing a specimen of Stevensia minutifolia collected in the Massif de la Selle, Haiti.  Detailed information about the specimen including ecological information and mapping data are available on-line from the Herbarium of the New York Botanical Garden using the links below.  Click on the thumbnail to see a larger image.  Courtesy of the International Plant Science Center of New York Botanical Garden.

 This weblift is part of a network of websites that were designed to provide Caribbean-based scientists and conservationists with tools to access data of Caribbean origin no matter where it is located.  The Haitian Weblift is the best one to use to find data specifically related to Haiti.  Those who are searching for data from throughout the Caribbean should use the Caribbean Biodiversity Weblift below.  The network includes a growing number of sites designed specifically to access data relevant to other Caribbean countries, each in the local language.  They will be the most useful tools for queries related to the biodiversity of individual countries. Currently, the network includes the following components:

• Biodiversity Weblift of the Dominican Republic (in Spanish)  at Grupo Jaragua 
• Cuban Biodiversity Weblift (in Spanish) temporarily hosted by Grupo Jaragua
• Caribbean Fishes Weblift at Caribbean Fishes Specialist Group
• Haitian Biodiversity Weblift, below

Online Databases that Contain Haitian Biodiversity Information

Multi-institutional resources:

 NEODAT - Inter-Instituional Database of Fish Biodiversity in the Neotropics 

•     About NEODAT 

•          Search fishes in 24 institutions

Orthoptera Species File  

•     List of databases  

•         Search Tettigonioidea, the katydids or bushcrickets  

•         Search Grylloidea, the crickets  

•         Search Acridomorpha, the grasshoppers and locusts

World List of Marine, Freshwater and Terrestrial Isopod Crustaceans

•         Search the World List of Isopods 

Resources in universities, herbaria, and natural history museums:

Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia  

•    About the Biodiversity Group

•         Search fishes (via NEODAT; select ANSP from the institution drop-down menu)

American Museum of Natural History  

•     About the fish collection  

•         Search fishes (via NEODAT; select AMNH from the institution drop-down menu)

Auburn University, Museum of Natural History  

•     About the fish collection

•         Search fishes as guest (sign-in required)  

•         Search fishes (via NEODAT; select AUM from the institution drop-down menu)

 California Academy of Sciences  

•     About the Botany Department  

•         Search the database of type specimens of vascular plants

•     About the Herpetology Department  

•         Search amphibians and reptiles  

•     About the Ichthyology Department  

•         Search the on-line Catalogue of Fishes, a guide to current names of all fishes  

•         Search fish collection (via NEODAT; select CAS from the institution drop-down menu)

 Cornell University, Museum of Vertebrates  

•     About the ichthyology collection  

•         Search fishes (via MUSE; select Cornell from drop-down menu)

 Field Museum of Natural History  

•         Search amphibians and reptiles  

•         Search fishes

 Florida Museum of Natural History  

•     About fossil vertebrate databases

•         Search fossil vertebrates  

•     About mollusk collection databases

•         Search mollusks  

•     About fish collection databases

•         Search fishes

 Harvard University, Museum of Comparative Zoology  

•     About fish collection searches   

•         Search fishes (via NEODAT; select MCZ from drop-down menu)

•     Collections of the Department of Mollusks  

•         Search mollusks

 Muséum National de l’Histoire Naturelle (database forms in French and English)

•     List of collections and resources

•         Search fishes  

•         Search vascular plants

 Naturistoriska RiksMuseet (in Swedish and English; some parts in Spanish)  

•     About the fish collection 

•         Search fishes  

•     About the collection of botanical types  

•         Search the collection of botanical types

 New York Botanical Garden  

•     About the herbarium and its databases  

•         Search the entire database of plants and fungi  

•         Search vascular plants  

•         Search type specimens of vascular plants of the West Indies  

•         Search orchids of the West Indies  

•         Search the flora of Navassa Island, West Indies

Royal Ontario Museum  

•     About the Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Biology  

•         Search fishes (via NEODAT; select ROM from the institution drop-down menu)

Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History  

•         Search fishes  

•         Search type specimens of fishes  

•         Search wood samples  

•         Search type specimens of birds  

•         Search type specimens of ferns  

•         Search flowering plants  

•         Search mosses, hepatics and lichens  

•         Search algae  

•         Search the World List of Isopods

 University of Kansas, Natural History Museum

•     About the fish collection

•         Search fishes (via NEODAT; select KU from the institution drop-down menu)  

University of Michigan, Museum of Zoology  

•     About the fish catalogue searches  

•         Search fishes  

•     About the collections of amphibians and reptiles  

•         Search type specimens of amphibians and reptiles

 Yale Peabody Museum  

•     About the collections at the Peabody Museum  

•         Search amphibians and reptiles  

•         Search fishes