Help me create a photographic database for wood cats!

[Catfish-ologist]

Hello all,
Recently, I started working on designing a database to store data about wood cats. This database is essentially a large collection of photographs. The purpose of this collection is to have a large sample size of data to be able to study the natural variation in the patterns and where the bridge is between species. Personally, I have over 500 wood cats so I have a good starting sample size. I would like for anyone that has a clear photo of ANY species of wood cat (from the side) please consider providing them to this project. Eventually this may be used for a paper, but at the moment it is just a project for reference. If you are considering providing photos please add any of the following data you have: F#, Species, Collection location, age (in months)(minimum 6 months of age), size (cm), and gender. Once a large enough collection is acquired the data will be made available on my website: https://thecatfishden.com. Here is a quick example of how this will be displayed:

This photo will be labelled: F1.0001.12.5.F.000001
This means That it is an F-1 fish from strain one (separate cheat-sheet for the strain) this particular strain is D. perugiae from the Rio Nanay. It is 12 months old, 5 cm long, a female fish, and the very first specimen in the collection.
Thank you for at least reading this post and considering if you have anything to offer.
Thanks,
-- Sean

[characinkid]

Hi,

This seems like a great initiative to capture and record all this information. Ill certainly take pictures of my few woodcats and happy contribute them to this effort and am supportive.

I did have one question, does this site not offer what you are looking for, or would you be able to work with them to support what you are asking for? Im aways concerned about information being in many different places that its difficult to find and PC has always been my one stop shop for Catfish related stuff!.

Again great idea and happy to support this in anyway I can.

[Catfish-ologist]

Thanks for the reply! What I am really trying to do here is to accumulate as many high-quality photos as possible. PC does have a large number of photos as well as photos of unique fish, however I not only want the photos. I am also looking to get the data behind that, so that when you see an interesting variation that is mislabeled you either have a collection location, age, F# etc. to give some context. PC is my favorite catfish database, however it is focused on a large collection of data for all siluriformes. I want to build a more niche collection of photos, factual information, etc. Thank you for taking your time to get photos, they are greatly appreciated.

Now I just have to take the time to take photos of all my fish. (My count of 500 is probably not accurate, I had a 2.5 gallon grow-out tank with what I thought was 40-50 juvenile D. perugiae(DAILY WATER CHANGES), however after upgrading their tank and counting them there are over 100!(There is also a group of 50 older than them 50 younger than them, and another batch of eggs today!))

[fishguy1978]

T gyrina

F?.0002.00.5.F.000001

[fishguy1978]

T intermedia

F?.0002.00.75.M.000001

F?.0002.00.7.F.000002

[Jools]

I did have one question, does this site not offer what you are looking for, or would you be able to work with them to support what you are asking for?

Just to expand on this, completely happy to help. I know that when we met Sean, you saw me supporting the next generation of catfish specialists and so you'll know I believe in this kind of thing.

If you would consider working with us, we actually have the capability to handle all this information and a lot more primarily through the breeding logs. This could be readily adapted if there is a specific need or can be stood up as a subset of the current database. (e.g. woodcatworld.com, catfishden.com etc.) but this has a cost (hosting this type of thing, number of images, especially long term). It would be good to understand the outcomes you're seeking and the benefits of what you are setting out to do.

I notice you've not made any BLogs of your woodcat successes (a good example one here - thanks @Bekateen), maybe have a look at that and see what you think in relation to what you are trying to achieve?

It's also worth considering if the effort of developing the database and website is likely to overcome the effort of capturing and maintaining the data. A bit like your LFS, developing a secure website, database and adding the data is a lot of work, but it's not very much when compared to the upkeep of the same. I've learned A LOT since the first version of our catfish database went online nearly 30 years ago - because of this, it'd be worth seeing if I could help here.

Happy to discuss this,

Jools

[Catfish-ologist]

@fishguy1978
Thanks for the photos, Your T. gyrina is gonna be F0 unless you purchased it from Jeremy Basch a few years back, because those were the only Captive ones ever sold. Are all of your gyrinas that fat? Mine have not been skinny nor overweight for quite some time. When I first got them they gorged on food, but they haven't been that plump since. I'm running out of space, so the Gyrina are in a 150 gal display tank, soon I will get them their own tank again and start working with them a bit harder. I imagine they can't be harder than T. strigata, I just need to find the time and space to do it.

[Catfish-ologist]

@Jools,
I would love to work with you on this project. For a bit more background, originally this project was created to compare spot-size in D. cf. perugiae, however it has now started to expand. I believe that with a bit of thought this could be adapted to PC. Please let me know if you have any ideas to adapt this in particular. I am in no rush to do this, I want to take my time. I haven't done any BLogs yet because I have been wanting to get as many good photos as possible before publishing. I did take quite a few for my talk at Catcon so I guess I should be working on these soon.

[fishguy1978]

@fishguy1978
Thanks for the photos, Your T. gyrina is gonna be F0 unless you purchased it from Jeremy Basch a few years back, because those were the only Captive ones ever sold. Are all of your gyrinas that fat? Mine have not been skinny nor overweight for quite some time. When I first got them they gorged on food, but they haven't been that plump since. I'm running out of space, so the Gyrina are in a 150 gal display tank, soon I will get them their own tank again and start working with them a bit harder. I imagine they can't be harder than T. strigata, I just need to find the time and space to do it.

Just the female.

[bekateen]

Just to expand on this, completely happy to help. I know that when we met Sean, you saw me supporting the next generation of catfish specialists and so you'll know I believe in this kind of thing.

If you would consider working with us, we actually have the capability to handle all this information and a lot more primarily through the breeding logs. This could be readily adapted if there is a specific need or can be stood up as a subset of the current database. (e.g. woodcatworld.com, catfishden.com etc.) but this has a cost (hosting this type of thing, number of images, especially long term). It would be good to understand the outcomes you're seeking and the benefits of what you are setting out to do.

I notice you've not made any BLogs of your woodcat successes (a good example one here - thanks @Bekateen), maybe have a look at that and see what you think in relation to what you are trying to achieve?

It's also worth considering if the effort of developing the database and website is likely to overcome the effort of capturing and maintaining the data. A bit like your LFS, developing a secure website, database and adding the data is a lot of work, but it's not very much when compared to the upkeep of the same. I've learned A LOT since the first version of our catfish database went online nearly 30 years ago - because of this, it'd be worth seeing if I could help here.

Happy to discuss this,

Jools

Thanks Jools for the shout-out, and yes I concur, Sean's idea is a really cool concept. I would add too that I think the key difference between @Catfish-ologist's idea and the current BLOG entries is data mining to extract comparable data between BLOG entries and compile it to a report that shows things like averages, range, etc.

As I read this, it took me back to my old idea of a summary breeding report (as described HERE), except maybe in this case with photos. If a person could click a link and activate a data-mining bot to generate a summary report of mean and range of SL for fry at different ages, and also present photos available, that would be fantastic.

Good luck Sean.

Cheers,
Eric

[Viktor Jarikov]

If our photos might be of use, we'd be happy to provide them.

[Jools]

I am working towards this, but there is something of a sequence of events.

1. I need to make multiple spawning reports work because it would be very daft to add the other features, then add this and then have to "redo the plumbing after I've finished the tiles".

2. I need to make the conglomerated (and maybe also federated) breeding report of all logs for that species on one-page work.

3. I need to make the "all images from the species profile, my cats, my blogs and maybe even the wider internet" thing work for what Sean wants here.

Here we go!

Jools

[Jools]

I am working towards this, but there is something of a sequence of events.

1. I need to make multiple spawning reports work because it would be very daft to add the other features, then add this and then have to "redo the plumbing after I've finished the tiles".

2. I need to make the conglomerated (and maybe also federated) breeding report of all logs for that species on one-page work.

3. I need to make the "all images from the species profile, my cats, my blogs and maybe even the wider internet" thing work for what Sean wants here.

No. 1, above is complete to the point where I can look at 2 now as as described HERE.

Jools

[Jools]

Just noting that this is still very much on my mind - short on time at present.

Jools

[Kyzercat92]

I love this post wood cats are my favourite currently have 3 in my 5x2x2ft tank. I would send some pictures to help however I'm from UK so mine are only store bought. But love what you are doing and so jealous