Journeys
The expeditions, reassembled
Every dated label is a diary entry. Read a collector’s labels in order and the voyage comes back: the islands in sequence, the days at each, the specimens from every stop. 5 journeys so far, 1929 to 1978, 2,324 specimens between them.
4 collectors and expeditions219 days in the field190,194 km between stops1,130 photographed specimens
5 journeys match


Donald Anderson
22 islands · Aug 1949 – Mar 1950
Donald Anderson across 22 islands, August 1949 – March 19501,249 specimens · 70 stops · 211 days · 151,545 km
R.L. Stemmermann
28 islands · Nov 1977 – Feb 1978
R.L. Stemmermann across 28 islands, November 1977 – February 1978620 specimens · 70 stops · 102 days · 20,526 km
T. Hosokawa
15 islands · Jul – Sep 1936
T. Hosokawa across 15 islands, July – September 1936207 specimens · 23 stops · 64 days · 6,008 km
R. Kanehira
18 islands · Jun – Aug 1929
R. Kanehira across 18 islands, June – August 1929195 specimens · 28 stops · 90 days · 12,115 km
R. Kanehira
6 islands · Jun – Jul 1931
R. Kanehira across 6 islands, June – July 193153 specimens · 2 stops · 8 days
How a journey is found
Every specimen with a full date and a known collector is a diary entry. The days are read in order; a gap of more than three weeks ends one journey and starts the next. Days spent where a collector lived most of their life are home, not travel, and are left out.
A journey needs at least five days, forty specimens and two places. Within it, a run of days spent within about ten kilometres is one stop; the stop’s point is the middle of the labels that carry coordinates, or the island’s centre when none do.
Companions are the people whose own labels put them in the same place on the same days. Staff can name a journey, write about it and feature it; everything else here is read straight off the specimens, and is rebuilt as the records improve.
