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. 6 journeys so far, 1977 to 1993, 1,596 specimens between them.
5 collectors and expeditions173 days in the field19,836 km between stops
6 journeys match
Johnson Randall
35 islands · Feb – Sep 1977
Johnson Randall across 35 islands, February – September 19771,178 specimens · 101 stops · 216 days · 16,972 km
Johnson Randall
15 islands of Oman · Dec 1992 – Feb 1993
Johnson Randall across 15 islands of Oman, December 1992 – February 1993178 specimens · 21 stops · 71 days · 2,300 km
Helen A. Randall
4 islands · Apr – Jun 1977
Helen A. Randall across 4 islands, April – June 197795 specimens · 6 stops · 63 days
J. van Egmond
7 islands · Dec 1992 – Jan 1993
J. van Egmond across 7 islands, December 1992 – January 199347 specimens · 8 stops · 16 days
J. van der Land
8 islands of the Seychelles · Dec 1992 – Jan 1993
J. van der Land across 8 islands of the Seychelles, December 1992 – January 199342 specimens · 7 stops · 15 days · 564 km
D.J. Woodland
La Digue · 1–5 Jun 1977
D.J. Woodland in La Digue, 1–5 June 197756 specimens · 3 stops · 5 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.