What is a Pan-species List?
A pan-species list is a list of all the animals, plants, fungi and protists you have seen in Britain, Ireland, Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands. Whether a Daisy or a Death's-head Hawk-moth, a Killer Whale or a Killer Shrimp, all species count as equal on your pan-species list. Keeping a pan-species list is a great way to broaden your natural history identification skills and develop our understanding of under-recorded taxa, as well as being a lot of fun of course. Read more about pan-species listing, and the "rules" for what you can and can't count.
BUBO and Pan-species Listing
A recent discussion on the Pan-species Listing Facebook group considered that it would be helpful, especially for newcomers studying particular taxa, to publish full lists rather than just totals and comments. We'd already been thinking about expanding BUBO Listing to other taxa and so here it is: BUBO Pan-species Listing!
All your favourite BUBO features are available for pan-species lists, e.g. top targets and top blockers, multiple list types including year lists and self-found lists, and rankings can be shown for families for bird lists, and taxon groups (Mammals, Odonata, Lepidoptera: butterflies, etc.) for PSL lists. You can create a pan-species list for a site, e.g. your local patch, or a reserve that you work on or regularly visit, and other listers' records will contribute to the overall site list.
To avoid PSL being too overwhelming (with currently 37 taxon groups, and potentially more than 70,000 species on the base list!) we will be launching different groups gradually, starting with butterflies, odonata (dragonflies and damselflies), and orthopteroids (grasshoppers, crickets, earwigs, etc.). See the current Pan-species List. As with birds, BUBO Listing makes it easy to process taxonomic updates when they occur.
Getting Started
If you are not already a BUBO Lister, then sign-up for an account first. When you are logged in, select Create New List from the My Lists menu: we recommend starting with the location of Britain, Ireland, Isle of Man & Channel Islands which is used exclusively for pan-species lists, although you can do a more local list if you prefer. Then just tick off your species (adding any dates, locations and comments for extra interest). More details are available from the Instructions menu.
See Pan-species listing has arrived on BUBO for additional information, including how to join the community on the PSL website.
We will shortly be migrating to a higher-powered server, which is necessary to support the additional growth that pan-species listing will bring. We are very grateful to anyone who donates towards our costs in running BUBO Listing, and especially to those who contribute a monthly donation. Over the past two years however, donations have come well short of our overall software and hosting costs. We believe in BUBO Listing offering a free service, as the fun in the site comes majorly from it being open to all. However we would encourage anyone who appreciates using it to make a donation. There is no obligation but any amount is appreciated, whether one-off or regular. Use the Donation button on the left, or Contact Us to donate by bank transfer.