LacewingMAP: Progress report on the atlas of African Neuroptera and Megaloptera, 2014–2019

Abstract

This report describes progress with the atlas of lacewings, defined as the orders Neuroptera and Megaloptera, up to 31 March 2019. The database of the project contained 15,781 records, in two components - 12,898 specimen records and 2,883 photographic records - submitted to the LacewingMAP section of the Virtual Museum, over a period of 4.5 years (September 2014 to March 2019). The average rate of submission of photographic records for LacewingMAP for the four calendar years 2015 to 2018 was 566 per year, three times faster than the rate at which the specimen database grew during the second half of the 20th century. 234 citizen scientists contributed photographic records to LacewingMAP. It seems that almost all of these people have primary interests in other taxa, and that the records submitted to LacewingMAP were a 'by-catch'. Photographs of at least two new species were submitted by citizen scientists during 2018.