By way of an experiment, we have written a program to plot the species records using Google Maps.
For example, click on the following link, which is a map of Harpachne schimperi records.
This plots our records of the alien grass, Harpachne schimperi, which so far has only been recorded within and close to Harare. This species has been chosen because the Harare area is a high resolution area in Google Maps.
The map initially presented shows an essentially blank map of Zimbabwe with all the records tightly clustered together.
In the top right of the screen is a horizontal menu showing the options Map, Satellite and Hybrid. Switch to the Satellite view and by moving the slider on the left upwards, zoom in on the bunch of records. It is possible to get in amazingly close.
A further feature which has been added is that if you click on one of the teardrops, it will display the Quarter Degree Square number.
Clearly, further developments are possible. At present, the facility is limited mainly by the fact that recording for this site has been done using the UTM grid system and not latitudes and longitudes. It will be necessary to convert the UTM coordinates to latitude and longitude and add the new details to the site. This is straightforward but will be time-consuming.
Mark Hyde
30 October 2006