A way in shouldn’t depend on who you already know.
The Ommatidium Project is a volunteer network that helps people reach invertebrate specialists in insects, spiders and mites. We aim to make it a little easier and friendlier than ever before.
The world of invertebrates is small. We provide the door.
Started by an entomologist, for everyone left out.
The Ommatidium Project began as a passion project, built by an entomologist who found this field hard to enter. The networks that open doors here sit with a handful of people, and everyone else is left to guess their way in. Connections are powerful, and they should not depend on already knowing someone. This is a plain attempt to democratise them: a warm introduction for anyone with a passion for invertebrates.
What we do
You send a short note about what you’re drawn to and the kind of help you’re after. Your request lands in a shared queue, a volunteer claims it, and with your permission they make a warm introduction to a good contact, anyone from a curator to a recorder, society or mentor. A few weeks later we check back to see whether it led somewhere.
We make the introduction; what grows from it is yours. Some people get a single answer and they’re happy. Others find a mentor, a field they fall for, or somewhere to volunteer for years. We’re glad either way; we just help it start. And it’s free.
Who the volunteers are
Curators, county recorders, society members, researchers and graduate students from right across the field, willing to make an introduction now and then. The full volunteer agreement and code of conduct sit alongside our other documents on the home page.
The pilot, honestly
This project is an early pilot for adults 18 and over. We are based in the UK. For some requests there are only a handful of people who can help, and popular questions and groups get swamped. So we can’t promise a match every time. We set expectations early and do our best.