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. 4 journeys so far, 1972 to 1975, 240 specimens between them.
4 collectors and expeditions53 days in the field34,909 km between stops236 photographed specimens
4 journeys match
van Zanten
3 islands · Dec 1973 – Feb 1974
van Zanten in North Island, South Island and New Zealand, December 1973 – February 197480 specimens · 26 stops · 62 days · 14,958 km
Dale H. Vitt
6 islands of New Zealand · Dec 1972 – Jan 1973
Dale H. Vitt across 6 islands of New Zealand, December 1972 – January 197362 specimens · 13 stops · 48 days · 14,958 km
L. Visch
3 islands of New Zealand · Dec 1972 – Feb 1973
L. Visch in South Island, New Zealand and North Island, December 1972 – February 197345 specimens · 9 stops · 52 days · 4,993 km
van Royen
South Island and Australia · Feb – Mar 1975
van Royen in South Island and Australia, February – March 197553 specimens · 4 stops · 29 days
How a journey is found
Every specimen with a full date (year, month and day; a bare “1 January” is treated as a missing day) and a named collector is a diary entry. For each collector the days are read in order, each day given the place most of its labels name. The place where a collector spent more than forty percent of their days, and at least sixty of them, is home: days there are left out.
A gap of more than 21 days between collecting days ends one journey and begins the next. A journey must run five to four hundred days, hold at least forty specimens and touch at least two places. Within it, consecutive days inside the same or a neighbouring tenth-of-a-degree cell (about eleven kilometres) are one stop; the stop’s point is the mean of its labels’ coordinates, or the island’s centre when none carry any.
Companions are collectors whose own labels put them in the same cell on the same days. Staff can name a journey, write about it, feature it or hide it; those words survive every rebuild. Everything else is read off the specimens and rebuilt by harvest.mjs expeditions as the records improve.