Bermuda Mudsnakes, Chinese Rattlers, Kansas barrier Islands

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chrish
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Bermuda Mudsnakes, Chinese Rattlers, Kansas barrier Islands

Post by chrish »

I downloaded my NAHerp data in the KMZ format today just to check for errors. Sometimes it helps to see it on a map.

What did I find?

- a mudsnake found in a log about 150 SE of Hamilton, Bermuda (it did say the log was partially submerged!)
- a DOR Western Diamondback and a Great Plains Rat found close together in a province in central China
- a couple of turtle species found on a barrier island just off the coast of Wichita, Kansas
- an alligator ~75 miles off the Galveston coast
- a Texas Ratsnake ~40 miles of the coast of Tampico, Mexico

The google download option is a great tool to find these tiny errors in entering your GPS data! I had left off some negative signs in the longitude, entered 37 instead of 39, 27 instead of 29, etc.

Someone else had posted about Chinese records in the previous iteration of this forum, but I thought I would add this reminder (and share a laugh).

Chris
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Fundad
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Re: Bermuda Mudsnakes, Chinese Rattlers, Kansas barrier Isla

Post by Fundad »

:lol: :lol: :lol: :crazyeyes: :crazyeyes: :crazyeyes: :thumb:

Fundad
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spinifer
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Re: Bermuda Mudsnakes, Chinese Rattlers, Kansas barrier Isla

Post by spinifer »

chrish - do you check any other way than just a visual inspection of where your data falls on the map?

I love viewing my data in Google Earth. But I think that some of us have entered so many records, that viewing all of them at once, makes it difficult to find mistakes.

Right now the data is sorted by taxon, but I would like to see some more options, like sorting by year or by state and county - that one would really be helpful in catching the typo errors that chrish had.
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Don Becker
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Re: Bermuda Mudsnakes, Chinese Rattlers, Kansas barrier Isla

Post by Don Becker »

I have been trying to find a good way to verify a coordinate lies within the state or county specified. So far the MySQL options for it are not very accurate, and can only check if it is withing the bounding box, but not within a complex shape. That may suffice in the long run though. I think I made add some checking to make sure the coordinates fall within the bounds of North America at least.
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Re: Bermuda Mudsnakes, Chinese Rattlers, Kansas barrier Isla

Post by chrish »

spinifer wrote:chrish - do you check any other way than just a visual inspection of where your data falls on the map?
I only have a few hundred records in there right now so it isn't too hard to eyeball. I'm really not looking for things a few miles off, I'm looking for obvious things. I guess I could go in and look carefully at the records in a state or county. Maybe zoom into a county and click each record to make sure you are in the right county?

Psyon,

I think that's a great idea. If you simply had it test for a region of bounds that includes all of North America, it would find all the chinese records. I'm sure there are a lot of them since that minus sign is easy to forget. Something like longitude must be between -50 and -180 and latitude be between 15 and 65. You could define the Canada, the US (except hawaii may throw you off) and Mexico separately and perform three tests?

I don't think it is possible to tell if a person misses by a few miles, but you could certainly define the boundaries of a state roughly. If you defined Texas as being between 25 and 36 degrees latitude and -93 and -106 degrees longitude, you would pick up most errors. Sure an OK record might slip in there, but a CA record wouldn't. I think most errors are off by more than just a few 10ths of a degree.

Just some food for thought.

Chris
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Don Becker
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Re: Bermuda Mudsnakes, Chinese Rattlers, Kansas barrier Isla

Post by Don Becker »

I have Shape files for every country, state, and county. They are what I used to generate the various maps. I should be able to grab the max bounds for each one, and append a bit of padding to allow for differences in various mapping programs. I may work on that this weekend.
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Re: Bermuda Mudsnakes, Chinese Rattlers, Kansas barrier Isla

Post by Don Becker »

Ok, so at quick glance, based on the entered coordinates, there are 681 records that fall outside the bounds of North America, 701 records that appear to fall outside the state they say they are in, and 998 that appear to be outside the county they say. As I said, the boundary files may not match real borders exactly, and I did not give any margin of error during this quick check. The majority of the records that fall outside North America are from a single user who appears to have just left out the minus sign quite a few times. I will contact him and the other users with higher error counts to have them review their records. I will still try to get the error checking into the record entry form this weekend.
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Re: Bermuda Mudsnakes, Chinese Rattlers, Kansas barrier Isla

Post by jonathan »

I enter my data one locality at a time, so after every 2-3 localities I enter I use the "download to google earth" option and zoom in to check the data as accurately as possible, basically following my trip path along the entries (though not clicking on every one if I know what they are). I try to change anything that looks like it's off by more than a couple hundred yards. Then again, I'm insane.
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Re: Bermuda Mudsnakes, Chinese Rattlers, Kansas barrier Isla

Post by Don Becker »

jonathan wrote:I enter my data one locality at a time, so after every 2-3 localities I enter I use the "download to google earth" option and zoom in to check the data as accurately as possible, basically following my trip path along the entries (though not clicking on every one if I know what they are). I try to change anything that looks like it's off by more than a couple hundred yards. Then again, I'm insane.
Did you see the new map feature I added when you view your own records? And the google maps tool when editing records?
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Re: Bermuda Mudsnakes, Chinese Rattlers, Kansas barrier Isla

Post by Steve Bledsoe »

How does the Maps Tool work on the editing page?

When I click on the tool icon I get an "Error on page" warning. I know that the L/L is correct on this record, so the warning must be referring to something else?
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Re: Bermuda Mudsnakes, Chinese Rattlers, Kansas barrier Isla

Post by jonathan »

psyon wrote:
jonathan wrote:I enter my data one locality at a time, so after every 2-3 localities I enter I use the "download to google earth" option and zoom in to check the data as accurately as possible, basically following my trip path along the entries (though not clicking on every one if I know what they are). I try to change anything that looks like it's off by more than a couple hundred yards. Then again, I'm insane.
Did you see the new map feature I added when you view your own records? And the google maps tool when editing records?

Yeah. It definitely is cool....but in some ways for me it is faster and more accurate to look at 30 records at once so I can see them relative to each other than to check every single record on the map individually.
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Re: Bermuda Mudsnakes, Chinese Rattlers, Kansas barrier Isla

Post by Don Becker »

Steve Bledsoe wrote:How does the Maps Tool work on the editing page?

When I click on the tool icon I get an "Error on page" warning. I know that the L/L is correct on this record, so the warning must be referring to something else?
Are you using IE? If so, hold the shift key, and hit reload when on the record page to make sure it doesn't use it's cache. If that isn't the problem, what browser are you using, and what version.
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Re: Bermuda Mudsnakes, Chinese Rattlers, Kansas barrier Isla

Post by Steve Bledsoe »

I'm using IE.
I don't know how to verify what version I'm using, but I believe it's the latest one.

The SHIFT+RELOAD move didn't do anything, but then again, I'm not sure what clicking on the TOOL icon is supposed to do in the first place! What's supposed to happen?
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Don Becker
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Re: Bermuda Mudsnakes, Chinese Rattlers, Kansas barrier Isla

Post by Don Becker »

When you click the wrench, you should get a little popup so you can browse google maps, or enter UTM coordinates
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Re: Bermuda Mudsnakes, Chinese Rattlers, Kansas barrier Isla

Post by Steve Bledsoe »

Tried it again - same results.

I get a pop-up menu when I right click on the TOOL, but I don't think that's what you're talking about. That menu has neither choice you mentioned.

I've got some business to tend to today. I'll try it again this evening.
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Re: Bermuda Mudsnakes, Chinese Rattlers, Kansas barrier Isla

Post by Don Becker »

If you get the error again when you try, please double click on the ! icon in the lower left, and it should tell you an error message. Let me know what it says if you can.
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Re: Bermuda Mudsnakes, Chinese Rattlers, Kansas barrier Isla

Post by Don Becker »

I figured out your proble I think steve. When you edit records, do you have it set to show decimal or DD MM SS format?
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Re: Bermuda Mudsnakes, Chinese Rattlers, Kansas barrier Isla

Post by Don Becker »

Ok, it should handle the DD MM SS formats now too.
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Re: Bermuda Mudsnakes, Chinese Rattlers, Kansas barrier Isla

Post by Steve Bledsoe »

That did it.
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