This photo of a mountain plover is one of nearly 7,500 photos of more than 1,650 species
in the online Species Photo Gallery. The gallery, a collaboration of the Wyoming Natural
Diversity Database and the Rocky Mountain Herbarium, both at the University of Wyoming,
features Wyoming’s wild plants and animals, with current content covering close to
half of the state flora. (Shawn Billerman Photo)
The Wyoming Natural Diversity Database (WYNDD) and the Rocky Mountain Herbarium, both
located at the University of Wyoming, recently teamed up to create a shared online
Species Photo Gallery.
The gallery features Wyoming’s wild plants and animals, represented by nearly 7,500
photos of more than 1,650 species and taken by over 240 photographers. The current
content covers close to half of the state flora. The gallery is available at www.wyndd.org/gallery/.
“Wyoming has an incredible endowment of plants and animals in the wild,” says Bonnie
Heidel, lead botanist at WYNDD. “We provide this photo gallery as a set of high-quality images, many of which have
been peer-reviewed, representing common and rare species, both native and introduced.”
Photos can be searched in the photo gallery by using any part of a species’ common
name or scientific name. The gallery incorporates all species photos in the Wyoming Field Guide as well as the core set of species photos provided by Robert and Jane Dorn to the
Rocky Mountain Herbarium. The gallery significantly expands coverage of many more
common plant species.
The Rocky Mountain Herbarium already provides a specimen database tool that calls up specimen data and accompanying digitized specimen images. The new Species
Photo Gallery brings plant specimen images to life, as they might be viewed outdoors.
With the support of UW’s Wyoming DataHub, the Species Photo Gallery was launched as the first of a set of new tools to allow
broader audiences to discover the flora of Wyoming. The gallery represents both the
Rocky Mountain Herbarium as the best source of information on the flora of Wyoming
and the region, and WYNDD as the most complete source of information on plant and
animal species and habitats of concern in Wyoming.
