18 replies to this topic

[Barristan]

Hi,

 

I created a new website: antkeeping.info and wanted to share it with you.

 

Project scope

 

The main purpose of this website is to collect all relevant data for ant keeping for example:

• Information about ant species (flight month, food, distribution, sizes, colony structure etc.)
• Flight data (Map, flight frequency statistic etc.)
• All information editable online by some registered users
• Open-Source
• Food (nutrition values, rating system) - not implemented yet -
• Links to Web sites (Wikis, Forums, Shops, Blogs etc.) - not implemented yet -
• Public REST-API so other websites/apps can access the data too  - not implemented yet -

All the data should also be searchable (for example search for all species with a length greater than 8 mm) - not implemented yet -

 

Currently, three major views are implemented:

 

Country list

 

 

You can see all species for a specific country/state - currently, only the list of Germany is complete -

 

Species Detail

 

 

You can view detailed information for each ant species. - a lot of information is missing for most of the species -

 

Flight Map/Statistics

 

 

You can view nuptial flights on a map and add new flights. This can be done by everybody even without an account.

 

A bar chart illustrating the flight frequency per month is automatically created and updated:

 

 

Help wanted

 

As you can see a lot of information is still missing, so I need people who want to contribute to the project by adding data. Programmers are of course also very welcome, since I only develop the website in my spare time.

 

Suggestions/Bugs

 

You can add suggestions/report bugs here in this thread, or directly on the GitHub project page.

Edited by Barristan, May 23 2018 - 2:06 PM.

[T.C.]

This is my last busy week, so I'll be adding info here real soon.

[Waganga]

Would it be too much to add known nesting locations, and an image repository? Or would that overlap too much with existing resources such as bugguide and antweb?

Edited by Waganga, May 23 2018 - 3:07 PM.

[Barristan]

I plan to add image upload and sure I could add nesting location. You mean like: "Forest, urban area etc."?

[Enderz]

Good to see that you have finally let this go public Barr . I'll diffidently be adding more information soon.

[Waganga]

I plan to add image upload and sure I could add nesting location. You mean like: "Forest, urban area etc."?

 

Maybe with some geographical locations as well? Ex "Cut stump, Urban area, Northglenn, Colorado, USA," with the option to add an image or images of the nesting site. I think citizen science is really interesting, and while there's some going on in the ant keeping community, it still seems that most of the resources exclude urban ecology. When trying to figure out what ants I've got in my own back yard, it's a bit difficult to compare notes on their nesting environment with the notes from the scientific community. Proper scientists are finding ant species in old logs and under rocks in Rocky Mountain National Park, but my ants are in urban stumps, under cinder blocks and between sidewalk cracks. 

 

Plus, if there's more info on nesting locations, that info + collected data for nuptial flights = easier to find queens that you want? It would help answer some of the questions I see posted here frequently like "Where to find General Ant Sp. in Colorado in May?" 

 

 

Edit: I'm also wondering, are you testing out/looking forward to strong mobile functionality for your site? I feel like recording in the field would be the easiest way to implement any kind of location tracking. Then you can tap into mobile device locations, and get flight/nest locations with an exact GPS coordinate. 

 

It's a one man project, though, so don't let too many additional ideas bog down progress on your original idea! 

Edited by Waganga, May 24 2018 - 10:21 AM.

[Deluga]

I can help add some information too. Next week is my last week working at the job I have now, then I'm looking for work, so should have a lot of spare time to help add in data. Also you are missing Denmark.    

[Barristan]

The main reason why I added this flight map was so that I can add all the historic flight reports which can be found in various forums, so everything is in a database, can search for, the flight statistic can be made etc. Most flights are reported by address, only very few ant keepers include GPS coordinates (just look into the ant spotting thread here). But you are right adding an option to add GPS coordinates and to get your current location would be nice and I will add that when I have time .

 

the habitat can be added as a simple text field or what do you think how users should add the information?

I can help add some information too. Next week is my last week working at the job I have now, then I'm looking for work, so should have a lot of spare time to help add in data. Also you are missing Denmark.    

 

A lot of countries are still missing, when I have time I will import distribution data from antwiki, they have species listed for each country.

[Waganga]

 

 

the habitat can be added as a simple text field or what do you think how users should add the information? 

 

 

 

 

Text field would probably be sufficient, but probably adding the habitat as tags would be most efficient, the same way tags are added to forum posts here. If that's easy/possible. (It's been a long time since I did any of my own web development, tbh, I don't know how easy cool things are these days!) Tags would probably encourage people to be brief and precise (ex: "In a rotten stump in the corner of my back yard" vs "stump, rotten, back yard") and would also theoretically facilitate easier searching for similar habitat reports.   

[Barristan]

The framework I use (Django) has an extra package for tags, I already use it for another web page. All you have to do is adding it to your database model and it will do the rest.

I think I should also add tags for weather condition, like "cloudy, sticky" + a field for air pressure. The location is also missing height.

[Barristan]

Some new things added to the flight form:

• Additional Spotting types
• Species note
• Habitat field (tags)
• Rain field
• Sky condition field

Edited by Barristan, May 30 2018 - 1:16 AM.

[Barristan]

And again some new things:

 

• Added ant species of almost all countries, data is from antwiki.org
• It is now possible to embed the flight map and the "add flight form" into any website using an iframe, for an example see my blog. All you have to do is use the following url as src:
  

  https://antkeeping.info/flights/?iframe=true
  

Edited by Barristan, June 3 2018 - 1:35 PM.

[Hunter]

its good but it needs some work, you are missing some states like Maine,ect

[Barristan]

its good but it needs some work, you are missing some states like Maine,ect

 

Yep. The website only displays states with ants in the database.

[Barristan]

New Features 2018-06-06:

 

• Flight form has two new buttons: "Submit and add another species" and "Submit and add another flight". The former will open a new flight form and prefill it with previously entered data the latter will just open an empty new flight form instead of redirecting you to the map.
  
  
• Added "project" and "external user". You can add a project string that can later be used for querying flights. you can also add an external user string, for example if you type in flights from a forum you can add the forum user there. Currently both aren't used for anything yet, but I plan adding a "leader board" which shows which forum user has reported the most flights so far.
• Added basic search functionality. The string you enter will be used to search for ant species and regions. It will search for species name, common name, invalid name. So, for example if you enter "fire ant" you will see all ant species with a common name that includes the string "fire ant"
  

  
  Currently there are only very few common and invalid names in the database so you won't find a lot by using them. Examples that work: Pheidologeton diversus -> returns Carebara diversa, "schwarzgraue wegameise"  -> returns Lasius niger

Edited by Barristan, June 6 2018 - 1:57 AM.

[Barristan]

New features:

• Moved away from google maps to leaflet + Bing maps
• You can now enter gps coordinates on "add flight" form
• Pressing Button "get current location" will try to get your current location and fill out the address + coordinates
• Map will now focus to your current location (if you allow it)

I hope that I can now work on other stuff I am a little bit burned out working on the map

[Waganga]

This is coming along really nice, good job!!

 

Only issue I am seeing functionally, for the "add a nuptial flight," is that it won't accept "tetramorium immigrans" as a valid species.  Maybe it would be easier if this field was a dropdown of some kind?

[Barristan]

This is coming along really nice, good job!!

 

Only issue I am seeing functionally, for the "add a nuptial flight," is that it won't accept "tetramorium immigrans" as a valid species.  Maybe it would be easier if this field was a dropdown of some kind?

 

Because it is not a valid species, "Tetramorium immigrans" would be correct . But you are right drop down would be better and since I already have more than 10000 ant species in db, it should be enough for probably all ants ever found by ant keepers.

[Barristan]

I finally finished a major update of https://antkeeping.info.

I added new lists (genera by region, tribes by region, subfamilies by region). I also updated distribution data (Canada, Brazil and other countries now also have subregion based distribution data)

You can now also view the top 50 rankings (for example top genera by a number of species).

The website is free of ads, trackers, and open source. Check it out and I hope you enjoy it.