September 1, 2006 (Vol. 26, No. 15)
URL:
http://www.leps.it
Rating:
Strong Points: Excellent design
Weak Points: Little technical info
Summary:
Sometimes I pick a site just because I think it looks great and is well organized. Putting together a website is no fun and navigating it is less so, especially if there is a lot of info. Moths and Butterflies of Europe and North Africa meets both of my criteria. First, the subjects are beautiful to look at. Even the moths, which aren’t usually icons of beauty, look great. Second, the site wins high fives for a tidy organizational scheme in which family names are shown in a frame on the left of the opening page. Clicking on a name expands it to show genus and species. Clicking on one of these produces excellent images of the larval and adult forms. This is a dandy organizational scheme for the casual visitor who likes scrolling through things, yet is also totally useful for anyone who is looking for a specific picture of a particular organism. This is one of the best information-loaded sites lacking a search engine that I have seen.
