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. 3 journeys so far, 1934 to 1988, 2,048 specimens between them.
3 collectors and expeditions125 days in the field40,166 km between stops1,730 photographed specimens
3 journeys match



Elwood Curtin Zimmerman
21 islands · Feb – Oct 1934
Elwood Curtin Zimmerman across 21 islands, February – October 19341,714 specimens · 56 stops · 248 days · 12,587 km
Steven L. Montgomery
9 islands of French Polynesia · Jul – Oct 1988
Steven L. Montgomery across 9 islands of French Polynesia, July – October 1988277 specimens · 18 stops · 73 days · 10,669 km
Noel Louis Hilmer Krauss
7 islands · Jan – Mar 1960
Noel Louis Hilmer Krauss across 7 islands, January – March 196057 specimens · 7 stops · 58 days · 16,910 km
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.
