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<p>While curating today, I came across a fair-sized series of
specimens with one of those locality labels that make you pull out
your hair. It typifies most of the worst of this sort of label, in
its combination of useless vagueness (the only recognizable place
name is the country) and hopeless specificity (it gives the name
of a privately-held property, rather than a town or some other
place name that would appear on a map).<br>
</p>
<p>To wit:<br>
</p>
<p>ZAMBIA</p>
<p>“Amorotis Farm"</p>
<p>15.ii.1972, S.C. Cruickshank</p>
<p>Host: on citrus</p>
<p>Don't bother Googling; either the farm name is badly misspelled,
or it is no longer extant, and has never been recorded in a
document that is on the web. There is also a Mr. S.A. Cruickshank
who works with farmers in Zambia, but that's a different person
entirely.<br>
</p>
<p>It's not crucial for us to know more precisely (for genetic work,
just Zambia is probably sufficient), but it seems a shame to have
the <b>potential</b> to know exactly where these specimens are
from but be compelled to exclude them from georeferencing (a point
with an error radius of 700 kilometers is really more likely to
confuse people than be helpful, as so few people check error radii
when consulting online records).</p>
<p>A disproportionate number of the specimen records of this general
nature in our collection are from ranches or farms, from many
different countries, and even within the US. They are, not
surprisingly, almost impossible to track down once they change
hands or go defunct (e.g. "6 mi W Stanton Ranch HQ, Santa Cruz
Island", which is not helpful when the ranch was a few miles in
diameter and the few buildings were razed or repurposed decades
ago), and not always trivial to locate even if still operating.</p>
<p>Asking here is a long shot, but I'd also be curious as to any
tricks people might know for this type of locality (ranches and
farms), even if it doesn't solve this particular case. I do know,
and make frequent use of, the Fuzzy Gazetteer
(<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://isodp.hof-university.de/fuzzyg/query/">http://isodp.hof-university.de/fuzzyg/query/</a>), but that's more
useful for mistranscriptions or bad handwritten labels. For those
of you unfamiliar with it, it's a very helpful tool.</p>
<p>Thanks,<br>
</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Doug Yanega Dept. of Entomology Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314 skype: dyanega
phone: (951) 827-4315 (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://faculty.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html">https://faculty.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html</a>
"There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82</pre>
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