iNaturalist Highlight: 25,000th observation (Podisus maculiventris, the spined soldier bug)

On 21 May 2026, I uploaded my 25,000th iNaturalist observation, a nymph of the Podisus maculiventris, the spined soldier bug spotted in Hillside Park, Arlington, Virginia. 

As of this date, I've had 11 observations of the species (with some additional observations from the genus Podisus). A few days before this observation, I had another observation of a P. maculiventris attacking a much larger Nearctic Carpenter Ant (Camponotus nearcticus)

"Podisus maculiventris, the spined soldier bug, is a medium-sized predatory shield bug common in North America. It has prominent spines on each "shoulder" and preys on a wide variety of arthropods, particularly the larval forms of Lepidoptera and Coleoptera. As a generalist predator of many agricultural pests, P. maculiventris is generally considered a beneficial insect in gardens and crop fields." -- Wikipedia

P. maculiventris was first described by Thomas Say in 1831:

P. maculiventris, Hemelytra with a line at tip ; venter with five series of black points.

Inhab. U. S.

Body yellowish or pale brownish, with dense, rather large punctures : thorax acutely angulated each side behind the middle ; edge granulated before the middle : hemelytra having an abbreviated fuscous line at tip of the membranous portion : antennae, first joint short ; 2d longer than the third : tergum on the lateral margin with a blackish dot on each incisure : beneath yellowish : feet immaculate ; thighs sometimes having numerous minute blackish points ; anterior tibiae with an obvious spine over the slight emargination : venter with five obvious series of small black dots.

Say, Thomas. 1831 March. Descriptions of new species of North American insects, found in Louisiana by Joseph Barabino. New Harmony, Indiana. [page image from the HathiTrust].

A Visit to the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (Paris) in April 2026

While on a work trip to Paris, I had some time and after strolling along the Seine, thought I would take a wander through the Jardin des Plantes and make a visit to the one of the world's greatest natural history museums, none other than the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN).

I was last at the MNHN in 2023 for that year's BHL Annual Meeting. That visit was bittersweet as it was the first BHL meeting without Constance Rinaldo. We had lost her the previous year (in October 2022). At the Paris meeting, however, we were able to celebrate her life and accomplishments along with members of her family.

So, this visit was a bit different (and as a side note, the 2026 BHL Annual meeting was taking place this very same week, but, as in 2016, in London at the Natural History Museum  and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. But I digress. 

Grande Galerie de l'Évolution

On this visit (27 April 2026), I went to hit a few highlights -- chief among them the Grande Galerie de l'Évolution (above). The dodo exhibit was a bit disappointing. Seems the "disparues" animal exhibit was being redone, so there was no grand dodo on display this time.

I wandered around a bit more (lots of stairs, but in a nice open plan). Headed out and went across the way to pay respects at the House of Buffon, that would be Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon. The building is now the offices of the scientific publishing wing of the MNHN (back in 2018, at my first visit to the MNHN we had some meetings with Laurence Bénichou (Head of Publishing and a longtime and strong supporter of BHL). 

Time to move on. Decided to look for lunch, but can't decide where, almost go to the cafe at the Grande Mosquée de Paris but realize I can't get a beer there so move on. None of the lunch spots are hitting what I’m looking for. Finally, decide to go to Place de la Contrescarpe which seems packed with eateries. I get there and there are throngs of people in cafes. I choose, the Cafe La Contrescarpe, almost get mussels, but choose steak and frites which includes 3 deviled eggs and a salad. Very good. I add a beer, but just one! Food and service are very good. My table overlooks the Place, so good people watching options.

Celebration: Official Launch of the BHL Portal, 9 May 2007

May 2007 was an important time for BHL. All the work done by Tom Garnett to integrate BHL into the funding streams for the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) was coming together. 9 May was selected as the official launch date for EOL and the event would take place in Washington, DC.

The day started with a press conference held at the National Press Club. After that, participants regrouped back at the Smithsonian's Natural History museum to (well, you know), do more work. A bunch of us hung out in the digitization space (where the Smithsonian's Scribe machine had been delivered a few days earlier, on 5 May 2007). We'd decorated the room with some print on demand books from the Internet Archive and a Mold-a-Rama dinosaur from The Field Museum.

Cathy Norton and Brewster Kahle between events at the Smithsonian's Scribe digitization room

National Academies of Sciences

Installations: The Internet Archive Scribe machine arrives at the Smithsonian

To ramp up digitization of content, BHL partnered with the Internet Archive. In addition to using the large scale digitization centers the Internet Archive had set up in other parts of the country (Boston, San Francisco, New York), the Smithsonian partnered with the Library of Congress to set up a digitization center on Capitol Hill. To supplement the mass digitization center, the Smithsonian also hosted a single Scribe machine in the natural history building that that would focus on rare and fragile materials. 

On Saturday, 5 May 2007, the Scribe machine was delivered to the Smithsonian. Along with Tom Garnett, we were there to meet the delivery truck and help the movers transport the Scribe into the building. 

The Natural History museum is across the street from the Department of Justice and the Attorney General's office. A large, unmarked truck arriving on a weekend and turning around in the middle of Constitution Avenue drew the attention of law enforcement. We were able to explain what was going on and allowed to proceed with the unloading.

The Scribe, operated by Internet Archive and Smithsonian staff would go on to digitize hundreds of thousands of pages of biodiversity literature for BHL until it was removed in 2025.

Publication: The Biodiversity Heritage Library: Advancing Metadata Practices in a Collaborative Digital Library (Journal of Library Metadata, April 2010)

Along with a number of BHL colleague, I was a co-author of Suzanne Pilsk's article on BHL metadata that was published in late April in the Journal of Library Metadata.

Pilsk, S. C., Person, M. A., Deveer, J. M., Furfey, J. F., & Kalfatovic, M. R. (2010). The Biodiversity Heritage Library: Advancing Metadata Practices in a Collaborative Digital Library. Journal of Library Metadata, 10(2–3), 136–155. https://doi.org/10.1080/19386389.2010.506400 | Handle Open Access

Meeting: 2015 CNI Spring Membership Meeting (13-14 April 2015, Seattle, WA)

The 2015 CNI Spring Membership Meeting took place 13-14 April 2015 in Seattle, Washington. It was a busy meeting for me as I had two presentations. One, obviously, on BHL (along with Smithsonian Libraries' Director and BHL Chair, Nancy E. Gwinn) and another on the scholarly communications program at Smithsonian Libraries (see below).

Brewster Kahle delivered the opening plenary, "Providing Universal Access to Modern Materials—and Living to Tell the Tale."

Brewster Kahle

Nancy E. Gwinn

• Kalfatovic, M., & Gwinn, N. E. (2015, April 14). Building a Vast Library of Life: The Biodiversity Heritage Library Looks to the Future. CNI Spring 2015 Membership Meeting (CNI), Seattle, WA. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19741065. (abstract)

As a bonus, I gave a second presentation at the meeting that year (that wasn't about BHL):

• Kalfatovic, M. (2015, April 13). For the Increase and Diffusion of Knowledge: The Smithsonian's Research Online (SRO), Supporting Smithsonian Institution's Plan to Provide Increased Public Access to Federally Funded Publications and Digital Research Materials. CNI Spring 2015 Membership Meeting (CNI), Seattle, WA. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19741382. 

Abstract: Smithsonian Research Online (SRO) is a key tool in the Smithsonian's goal to implement the White House's "Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research" mandate. A pan-Smithsonian team developed the Smithsonian Institution plan and draft Implementation Manual that will meet the requirement laid out in by the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). The existing SRO platform (and associated digital repository) will serve as key components of the Smithsonian's plan which will also user additional tools and resources being developed by the wider ARL and publishers' community. The Smithsonian OSTP Plan was a cooperative response developed by Smithsonian Libraries, Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, Smithsonian researchers, the Office of General Counsel, and the Office of the Chief Information Officer, under the guidance of the Smithsonian's Deputy Under Secretary for Collections and Interdisciplinary Support. This session will outline the interactions of the various portions of the draft plan and its manifestation in a non-university environment.

See also "Sleepless in Seattle - CNI’s Spring Conference 2015" (April 29, 2015) by Keith Webster

Meeting: Refactoring Natural History Literature (17-18 April 2006, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)

In April 2006, I attended the Refactoring Natural History Literature meeting organized by Bryan Heidorn (then at the UIUC iSchool and also one of the early planners in BHL -- see the 2005 London meeting). Dr. Heidorn brought together a number of people for a meeting/workshop at the iSchool. Among those attending were Neil Sarkar (then at the Marine Biological Lab and one of the people behind the early taxonomic name-finding algorithm later used in BHL) and Anna Weitzman (Smithsonian informatician and botanist).

I gave the following presentation, which just might be the very first public BHL presentation:

• Kalfatovic, M. (2006, April 17). Open Access to Legacy Taxonomic Literature: The Biodiversity Heritage Library. Refactoring Natural History Literature Meeting, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19766400.

The presentation is notable for a number of things (and I might add I was merely distilling and listing things that had been discussed by many others over the past year or so):

• A list of the earliest BHL participating institutions;
• Tagging the Internet Archive as an "Affiliated Partner";
• Early mention of the "BHL Taxonomic Intelligence Tool" developed by David Remsen and staff (specifically Patrick Leary) at the  MBLWHOI Library;
• Use of the tagline "Open Access to Legacy Taxonomic Literature"; this would be replace shortly by "A cornerstone of the Encyclopedia of Life" when that relationship was formalized in late 2006, early 2007;
• An enumeration and distillation of many of the early ideas about BHL:
• importance of library collections to taxonomy;
• the half-life concept of taxonomic literature (I ascribe this to Tom Garnett);
• commitment to addressing the "taxonomic impediment";
• addressing challenges of the Darwin Declaration (1998);
• and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD);
• the importance of repatriating biodiversity literature to Global South (and biodiverse rich regions);
• The presentation also has a lot of diagrams and workflows, sorry that the arrows seem to have not stayed connected in migration of formats;
• Use of the "Cabinet of Curiosity" illustrations.

And an early use of the first BHL logo (designed by Nicole Van Doren) and BHL website (first hosted by the Smithsonian at "bhl.si.edu").

Two quotes that would be re-used by me many times over the years also appear in the presentation:

• In any well-appointed Natural History Library there should be found every book and every edition of every book dealing in the remotest way with the subjects concerned. One never knows wherein one edition differs from or supplements the other and unless these are on the same table at the same time it is not possible to collate them properly. Moreover for accurate work it is necessary for the student to verify every reference he may find; it is not enough to copy from a previous author; he must verify each reference itself from the original. -- Charles Davies Sherborn, Epilogue to Index Animalium, March 1922

• Yet another physical difficulty is the task of assembling the library and indexes which will enable the student to work under proper conditions…. the beginner must now be prepared to spend liberally, or else must establish himself in an institution where a large library exists; if he work by himself with only a few books, he will have to confine himself to a very narrow specialty indeed. -- 'The Limitations of Taxonomy' by J.M. Aldrich, Science, April 22, 1927, vol. LXV, no. 1686, p.381

This was also my very first visit to UIUC. For BHL and other information science meetings, I'd visit many more times over the years. And, of course, UIUC later joined BHL as a full member under Kelli Trei.