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, 1955 to 1957, 419 specimens between them.
2 collectors and expeditions67 days in the field7,200 km between stops106 photographed specimens
3 journeys match
Hugh Shaw MacKee
9 islands · Jul – Sep 1955
Hugh Shaw MacKee across 9 islands, July – September 1955222 specimens · 28 stops · 64 days · 5,455 km
Johnson Randall
5 islands · Feb – May 1956
Johnson Randall across 5 islands, February – May 1956111 specimens · 14 stops · 108 days · 128 km
Johnson Randall
9 islands of French Polynesia · Feb – Jul 1957
Johnson Randall across 9 islands of French Polynesia, February – July 195786 specimens · 22 stops · 146 days · 1,617 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.