Access digital copies of guides and regulations publications from the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.
Issue link: http://digital.outdoornebraska.gov/i/720963
25 must document the collection site. You can do this with a collection label similar to that illustrated here. The card should be made from some waterproof paper and they can be printed with a laser printer. If you have contact with a museum, they may have cards available for your use. A special note; be sure record your data with a pencil or waterproof ink. Most preservatives will remove ballpoint or similar inks and you will end up with a blank card. The collection card lists the waterbody name, location of the site, latitude and longitude, date of collection, county and the collector(s) name. The location is the distance and direction from the nearest major landmark, usually a town. Many GIS mapping programs only work with latitude and longitude in decimal degrees. Nowadays it is common for people to carry a handheld GPS unit with them in the field which makes it easy to record the latitude/longitude. If this is not available, you can get this from online applications such as Google Earth. Be sure to note the datum that the GPS uses to compute the latitude and longitude. This is usually WGS84 but if it is something else, you should note that on the collection card. [WGS84 is the World Geodetic System of 1984]. STUDYING CRAYFISHES The collection and publication of basic life history information used to be a foundation of the study of organisms. Nowadays, research into the life histories is rarely done which is why only 12% of North American crayfishes have published life history information. 169 For many crayfishes, we cannot even define their ranges as there are so many areas that have never been sampled. Collecting life history information is not difficult and students or citizen-scientists at any level can do this. So what is life history information? Such things as: -What kind of crayfishes live in your local waters? -When are the females carrying eggs? -How many eggs do they carry? -How large are the eggs? -How long does it take the eggs to hatch? -When do they release their young? -How fast do the young grow? -When do they become mature? -When do they mate? -How many young survive to become mature? -What do they eat? -How often do they molt? -Do they move? -How far do they move? -How long do they live? -What habitats are they using? To be really useful, the information has to be published in some form where others can find it. There are journals that publish this information and this is an option but not the only option. With the advent of the internet,