October 15, 2013 (Vol. 33, No. 18)
URL:
http://calphotos.berkeley.edu
Rating:
Strong Points: Very large image collection
Weak Points: Some photos without much (or any) description
Summary:
Who doesn’t love looking at photos? To peruse a wonderful collection of photos specializing in natural history, visit The University of California, Berkeley’s CalPhotos website. This site, which has been amassing photographer-submitted images since 1995, houses almost 400,000 photos documenting plants, fungi, animals, people/culture, and landscapes/habitats. Visitors to the site can either browse by category or can query the database by any of a number of parameters such as scientific or common name, location where the photo was taken, and photographer. Although the title of the site may lead you to believe otherwise, the CalPhotos collection is not limited to species/locations found in California. So go ahead and treat yourself to a vacation of wildlife and landscape viewing…right from your own home.
