http://www.richard-seaman.com/index.html

The Flying Kiwi website was created by Richard Seaman, a software engineer and talented amateur photographer with a penchant for traveling. Seaman's Life on Earth section shares great photos of reptiles, fungi, insects, birds, and marine life taken in countries around the world. For example, the Reptiles section links to images of iguanas in Belize and Guatemala; the Insects section contains photographs of butterflies in Costa Rica and Vietnam; and the Life Underwater section offers beautiful images of butterflyfish in the Red Sea. Select the thumbnail images to view larger versions of the photographs, and click on various text-embedded location and animal hyperlinks (e.g. New Zealand, Japanese Tiger Beetle) to connect to additional images. Although the Life on Earth section is not terribly extensive, it does feature some fine images of a variety of animals living on our planet. The site also offers a helpful selection of annotated links. Be sure to check out the Lizards of the Valley of Fire, and the Dragonflies and Damselflies of Fiji sections on this website! [NL]

http://www.ndif.org/index.html

The Nephrogenic Diabetes Insipidus (NDI) "Foundation was formed to support education, research, treatment and cure for Nephrogenic Diabetes Insipidus." One notable NDI Foundation website service is a sizable glossary of medical terminology with definitions for such terms as apoenzyme, basal nuclei, neuroglia, valine, and many more. The website also contains numerous abstracts of related journal articles. The article references and abstracts can be located by browsing extensive lists organized by Date, Author, and Journal. In addition to abstracts, some of the article references also link to less technical Lay Translations. The Foundation has requested permission from publishers to display full-text articles, and some of these versions are currently available as well. The referenced articles span more than a decade, and have appeared in such journals as Endocrinology, American Journal of Physiology, Journal of Biological Chemistry, and Nature, to name a few. An additional website service is the Researcher Directory which lists related researchers alphabetically, as well as by Institution, and Country. [NL]

http://araneus.narod.ru/spider.html

This website on spiders of Siberia was developed by Russian entomologist Oleg Berlóv. The site contains species lists for more than 20 families including Oxyopidae, Gnaphosidae, Lycosidae, and Salticidae, to name a few. In addition, the site features a number of excellent, close-up photographs of several spider species such as Araneus nordmanni, Argyroneta aquatica, Steatoda grossa, and Aculepeira ceropegia. This website also references and links to The World Spider Catalog located on the American Museum of Natural History website. [NL]

http://www.na.fs.fed.us/spfo/pubs/howto.htm

From the USDA Forest Service's St. Paul Field Office, this website offers a collection of instructive, online publications (first mentioned in the January 21, 2005 NSDL Scout Report for Life Sciences) that "are written for homeowners, land managers and others who want to know more about how to care for trees." The publications provide information about dealing with a number of diseases and other threats to a variety of tree types including Jack Pine, Oak, White Pine, Aspen, Basswood, Sugar Maple, and more. Examples of the more than 30 publication titles include How to Identify and Control Leaf Spot Diseases of Black Walnut; How to Identify and Manage Dutch Elm Disease; How to Identify, Prevent, and Control Oak Wilt; How to Control Sapstreak Disease of Sugar Maple; and more. Several of the publications are available in pdf as well. [NL]

http://www.gardenwriters.org/

The Manassas, Va.-based Garden Writers Association (GWA) claims a membership of more than 1,800 professional communicators in the lawn and garden industry. Its website, in addition to providing information about the organization and the benefits of membership, including the association's annual symposium scheduled September 9-12, 2005, in Vancouver, also includes several features that will be of interest to the broader community of gardeners. Visitors may peruse an extensive listing of books authored by GWA members and can also download a sample edition of the organization's newsletter, Quill & Trowel. The Speakers Bureau may help meeting planners, club leaders and others find a speaker to meet their program and budget needs. The site also introduces the organization's Plant a Row for the Hungry (PAR) project, describing it as an effort "to create and sustain a grassroots program whereby garden writers utilize their media position with local newspapers, magazines and radio/TV programs to encourage their readers/listeners to donate their surplus garden produce to local food banks, soup kitchens and service organizations to help feed America's hungry." Visitors can download the PAR cookbook in pdf format for free to see various member-submitted ideas for preparing fresh vegetables for the table. [CL]

http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/

Environmental Health Sciences, a nonprofit organization founded by the grassroots Virginia Organizing Project (VOP) in 2002 to help increase public understanding of emerging scientific links between environmental exposure and human health, tracks a broad range of relevant information on this well-designed and useful website. The In the News section of the homepage lists breaking news stories from the world press about environmental health and is updated daily. The New Science area offers paragraph summaries of newly published scientific findings from the peer-reviewed scientific literature, with links to more in-depth synopses at one of other organization's other websites, http://www.OurStolenFuture.org (scientific findings specifically about endocrine disruption) or http://www.ProtectingOurHealth.org (scientific findings about a broader range of human health and environment related research). The New Reports section provides links to new reports published on the Web by organizations working on environmental health issues. Most of the links are to work by nonprofit profit organizations; some links are to government reports. As of this writing, the site's searchable Archives contained 55,722 items dating to 2002. Users may also subscribe to a free daily electronic newsletter, Above the Fold, containing links to top news stories published in English news sources from around the world. All site content is available for syndication in both RSS and Javascript formats. [CL]

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/british-natural-history/index.html

Although some might fear that limited land resources and the usual development pressures are working to reduce Britain's natural history to footnote status, this website from the Natural History Museum in London effectively documents the UK's impressive biological and geological diversity. The site consists of interactive database features as well as videos (in both Windows Media and Quicktime formats). Exploring Biodiversity, an interactive introduction for students to UK biodiversity, allows users to compare the flora of different UK postal districts and also to download a version of WORLDMAP, the Museum's innovative distribution analysis software. The Earth Lab Datasite is a searchable database of fossils, rocks and minerals organized in part by geographic distribution. The Postcode Plants Database allows users to generate local lists of UK plants and/or animals. The British Natural History video, produced by the Museum's Darwin Centre, presents an online tour of the UK's wildlife scene, while Ornithology of the Orkney Islands looks at the work of bird researcher on these Scottish isles and also includes a discussion of migration studies with Museum ornithologist Douglas Russell. The site is best viewed with Netscape Communicator versions 4.5 to 4.8 and Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5 and later. [CL]

http://alpha.furman.edu/~snyder/snyder/lep/

Founded in 1947, the Lepidopterists' Society "embraces a wide range of interests and viewpoints concerning the study and appreciation of moths and butterflies" and includes both academic experts and dedicated amateurs in the ranks of a membership that spans 60 countries. In addition to information about the Society and membership therein, the website includes several features of interest. From the Publications section, Visitors may download in pdf format free of charge recent issues of the Society's newsletter, News of the The Lepidopterists' Society, and also view the Contents pages from recent issues of the organization's peer-reviewed scientific Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society. The News includes a special Season Summary supplement each year, containing reports of species identified by members in the various reporting regions during the preceding year, all of which the site presents in a searchable database dating to 1995. The Identification Aids section offers photos and other identifying information for the nearly 165,000 species known worldwide. Certainly one of the more intriguing features of this website is the Unknowns page, which invites users to identify photos of Lepidoptera that have stumped someone. For neophytes, a Frequently Asked Questions page contains expert answers to a list of essential questions, such as "I've heard that you can predict how cold the winter will be by looking at how thick the black bands are on a Woolly Bear caterpillar. Any truth in that?" [CL]