~ Early Web Links ~

Rod Crawford's Spider Collector's Journal chronicles decades of arachnid collecting expeditions from 1986 through the present, including trips to the Russian Kuril Islands and Sakhalin Island. The site features year-by-year narrative accounts, photo albums, and detailed documentation of tools and techniques used in scientific spider collection.

Elasmo.com is a detailed reference site covering the teeth of both extinct and living elasmobranchs, the group that includes sharks and rays. Fossil enthusiasts and paleontology hobbyists will find specialized information on elasmobranch dental morphology, with a focus on Neogene-era specimens from sites like Lee Creek.

Run by Jayson Kowinsky, FossilGuy.com is a comprehensive guide to fossil hunting and paleontology featuring field trip reports, fossil identification sheets, prehistoric animal profiles, and interviews with professional paleontologists. With content spanning from Megalodon teeth to trilobites to dinosaur news, it's a richly detailed resource for both amateur collectors and serious paleo enthusiasts.

Wild Harvests is T. Abe Lloyd's foraging blog focused on wild food experiments and plant identification in the Pacific Northwest, particularly Northwest Washington and Southern Vancouver Island. Posts cover edible plants like bulrush and beach pea, wetland ecology field courses, and hands-on accounts from decades of regional botanical study.

A German-language gallery dedicated to Cryptocoryne and Lagenandra aquatic plants, featuring photographs and information about these popular aquarium plant genera and their hybrids. Enthusiasts of tropical water plants will find this a specialized visual reference for identifying and appreciating these fascinating species.

The Cincinnati Dry Dredgers claim the title of the oldest continuously-operating fossil club in North America, bringing together amateur geologists and fossil collectors in the Cincinnati area since their founding. The site features extensive fossil identification guides for trilobites, crinoids, echinoderms, brachiopods, and more, plus field trip photos, member activities, and resources for finding Ordovician-era fossils in the region.

Operation RubyThroat is a comprehensive hummingbird research and education project run by Bill Hilton Jr. and the Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History in South Carolina. The site covers everything from attracting hummingbirds with feeders to scientific banding studies and student citizen-science projects, making it a rich hub for both casual enthusiasts and educators.

Peter Alfrey's birding notebook chronicles his passionate pursuit of birds across the UK and beyond, with detailed field accounts of species sightings, migration events, and twitches at sites like Beddington Farmlands and the Azores. The blog spans years of dated posts and connects to related projects including an eBird profile, a Black Sea observatory project, and pelagic birding trips.

Tim Tyler's essay from the Lotus Artificial Life site takes a critical look at the concept of the 'technological singularity,' arguing that exponential growth curves have no truly singular points and that futurists like Vinge and Kurzweil misuse the term. The piece is a thoughtful, technically grounded rebuttal complete with references to Kurzweil's graphs, Wikipedia, and related essays by other thinkers.

A comprehensive scientific reference on freshwater benthic ecology and aquatic entomology, covering macroinvertebrate taxa from mayflies and dragonflies to beetles and caddisflies across dozens of detailed chapters. Produced by the Soil and Water Conservation Society of Metro Halifax, this site offers taxa tolerance values, biological monitoring protocols, and research reports focused on freshwater ecosystems in Nova Scotia and beyond.