~ Early Web Links ~

A hypertext edition of Mrs. M. Grieve's landmark 1931 reference work 'A Modern Herbal,' covering medicinal, culinary, cosmetic, and economic properties of over 800 herbs and plants. The site includes alphabetical plant indexes, a recipes index, a poisons index, and supplementary reference tools like conversion tables and a medical dictionary.

Stern's Splendors of the Rain Forest is a richly illustrated site dedicated to tropical plants, focusing on orchids, bromeliads, tillandsias, cacti, and succulents native to the Americas. Featuring exotic photo galleries, cultural guides, and links to major plant societies worldwide, it serves as an enthusiast's showcase for rain forest horticulture.

The Lundy Bird Observatory Sightings Archive is a long-running blog documenting bird and wildlife observations from Lundy Island, now preserved as a historical archive after migrating to a new site in late 2023. Years of detailed sighting reports, species updates, and passage records make it a rich resource for birdwatchers and naturalists interested in this unique Atlantic island.

The Virtual Cell is an interactive educational tour of a biological cell, using extensive imagery to guide visitors through cellular structures and components. The included pronunciation guide and visual-heavy layout suggest this is a reference resource designed to help students and curious learners explore cell biology in an engaging, self-guided format.

BirdList.org is a comprehensive global reference cataloging over 10,000 bird species across 200 countries, with data coded for abundance, breeding, migration, wintering, and endemic status. Run by professional biologists affiliated with the World Institute for Conservation and Environment, the site also offers bird tour listings for destinations like Peru, Ecuador, Ethiopia, and Uganda, with species lists available in multiple languages.

Animal Info is a comprehensive reference site dedicated to rare, threatened, and endangered mammals around the world, offering detailed species profiles covering biology, ecology, habitat, and conservation status. Visitors can browse by species group, search an alphabetical index of common and scientific names, or explore by country to discover biodiversity and population data for hundreds of at-risk animals.

Xeno-canto is a massive community-driven database of wildlife sound recordings from around the world, covering birds, frogs, mammals, bats, and more, browsable by region or taxonomy. Launched in 2005, it serves researchers, birders, and curious listeners alike with tens of thousands of freely downloadable recordings backed by an open API and active community forum.

A shrine dedicated to Helicoprion, the ancient spiral-toothed shark whose bizarre whorl jaw has fascinated paleontologists for decades. The site includes speculative audio of how the creature might have sounded and even a campaign to vote Helicoprion into the fighting game SkullGirls, showing real enthusiasm for this prehistoric oddity.

The Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria is a collaborative portal uniting 60 regional herbaria across Alaska, British Columbia, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and the Yukon, offering access to over 3.6 million plant specimen records and nearly 1.8 million images. Researchers and naturalists can search the database by label data or geographic location, download datasets for offline use, and consult a fully annotated checklist of vascular plants native to the Pacific Northwest.