Because of the biotic surveys that have been completed in Illinois, it is one of the few states that has attempted even to estimate the number of species found within its boundaries. The research of the past century and a half at the Illinois Natural History Survey (INHS) has accumulated in the form of many papers, reports, and carefully documented collections of specimens. However, there has been no single list of the organisms in Illinois either in print or in computer format. Published lists of various groups of organisms, while as complete as the researchers could make them, were by their very nature outdated as soon as they appeared in print. Not only do animals and plants move around as individuals or in the form of seeds and spores, but professional botanists and zoologists also discover new species, and uncover mistakes in naming organisms (nomenclature) that must be corrected. A centralized, easily updated and widely available list of Illinois organisms would be extremely valuable to government agencies, educators, students, farmers, and others with an interest in the state's flora and fauna.
In order to make a summary listing of the organisms of Illinois available to the general public and research community, INHS researchers made a proposal to the former National Biological Service (NBS) to gather the information by taxonomic group and to make it available on the Internet. The primary reason for the project was to help stabilize the names in use for Illinois species of plants and animals and to provide a useful and concise reference for those attempting to work with the Illinois biota.
The partial funding of the database on Illinois organisms resulted in the entry of the best-known (and more "popular") groups of plants and animals into the database followed by lesser-known (and less "popular") groups as time permitted. Two Technical Supportive Scientists assisted in the project, namely Lawrence (Larry) Keller, who updated animal records, and Margaret (Peggy) Waltershausen, who updated plant records. Data were gathered from the Illinois Plant Information Network, the Illinois Fish and Wildlife Information System, current researchers, and published literature.
During the period of funding, over 15,000 individual species records were researched, edited, and entered into a series of databases. Each record had available 25 sets of information, including full scientific name, taxonomic group, synonyms, common names, whether threatened or endangered or not, literature references, whether native or not, and comments. This completed approximately 29% of the estimated total number of organisms in Illinois. This included (among the animals) all of the vertebrate groups (830 species), molluscs (319 species), sponges (12 species), cnidarians (9 species), annelids (164 species), spiders (516 species), and significant numbers of other invertebrates including insects (over 7,000 species entered). Among plants, this includes all known flowering plants (3,046 species), ferns and their relatives (109 species), conifers (22 species), mosses and liverworts (504 species), and algae and diatoms (1,326 species). Groups still awaiting entry include the majority of the fungi, mites, protozoans, bacteria, flatworms, and many more insects.
Finally, arrangements were made with INHS computer database managers and network supervisors to coordinate the transfer of the file data to an on-line format available on the Internet. Though the listing is not yet complete, indications from tests of data retrieval by means of Oracle software demonstrate that the project has been a success. The current access address on the Internet to this list of organisms is:
http://ibis.inhs.uiuc.edu:7998/ows-bin/owa/inhs_web.collections
At this location you will find a search engine that will allow you to access bibliographic information on all Illinois species (collections information is not available at this time). Click on "Submit" and a search page will appear. The illustration below shows a view of the search page.
View of search page.
Result of search for zebra swallowtail by common name.
To perform a search, just type in the name of an organism, zebra swallowtail for instance, in the "Value" field and hit the "Submit" button. Notice that the field to the right of the "Value" field reads "Common Name." By pressing this field, a menu appears that allows you to change your search method to any of the choices on the menu; for example, by genus or species instead of common name. In the above illustration you see the result of the search for zebra swallowtail by common name.
Steven R. Hill, Center for Biodiversity
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