London

Pin-ups: researchers will soon be able to view 28 million insects through a microscope on the Internet. Credit: NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM, LONDON

When Michael Schauff's work hits a snag, millions of dollars can be at risk. Insects contaminate thousands of US agricultural imports every year, and Schauff's lab in Beltsville, Maryland, is charged with identifying the immigrant critters. If his team lacks a reference specimen needed for the identification, decisions about whether to quarantine the cargo can become difficult.

Help may soon be at hand. Thanks to a remote-control microscope currently under development, Schauff will soon be able to access another 28 million specimens — those in the entomology collection of London's Natural History Museum (NHM). And advocates of the system suggest that it's about far more than customs work — they say the link-up shows how emerging digital technology will transform taxonomy.

When the microscope is installed this May, the US researchers will simply phone through requests for specimens. After a technician in London puts the insect on the microscope, Schauff's team will be able to use the device almost as if they were in the room with it — adjusting magnification, rotating the specimen and taking high-resolution images. The system is being developed by two Virginia-based optics companies, Microptics in Ashland and TriTek in Sumerduck.

“We get 5,000 urgent identifications every year and they need a report back the same day,” says Schauff. “That's millions of dollars of stock we're playing with every year.”

Quentin Wheeler, head of entomology at the NHM, estimates that the system will cost about US$135,000 to install at each location. If the technology works, he is keen to expand it to the large insect collections at the natural history museums of Paris and Washington. Together, the three collections contain more than 100 million specimens covering at least 95% of all described insect species, he says.

Wheeler adds that the technology will help to promote online collaborations between entomologists and, by archiving pictures taken when examining the specimens, it will eventually create a virtual library of insect specimens.

Adding video conferencing to the software used to control the microscopes would allow experts around the world to discuss the specimens, Wheeler says. And a portable version of the microscope would let entomologists guide the fieldwork of collectors.

But some advocates of a new vision for taxonomy question whether the system is the best way forward. “It is what happens next that will be really exciting,” says Charles Godfray, director of the Centre for Population Biology in Ascot, near London, pointing out that in the long term, insect collections can be digitized and made permanently available online.

Several databases of two-dimensional images, such as AntWeb, maintained by the California Academy of Sciences, are already up and running. And Godfray says that three-dimensional images can be created by imaging specimens from several angles and using software to stitch the pictures together.

Wheeler agrees that such a database should be created, but adds that researchers will always need to examine the actual specimens. The intricate structure of many insects' bodies will be difficult to capture using a fixed number of images, he suggests. The size of the collections also makes the creation of thorough databases a very long-term goal. “We've got 28 million specimens here,” Wheeler says. “You'll have to give us some time.”