Paper short abstract:

The project Fauna et Flora Fennica studies the fauna and flora in the region of Finland through multidisciplinary research. We demonstrate the use of digitized newspapers to find sightings of different animal and plant species around Finland, thus renewing the understanding of Finnish biodiversity.

Paper long abstract:

The project “Fauna et Flora Fennica” studies the fauna and flora in the region of Finland through historical, cultural and linguistic research. It brings to light a large number of sightings of different species hidden in newspapers and magazines from the 19th century to the 1970s. The sightings have not been previously widely known in a natural scientific and public context. The aim of the project is to renew the understanding of Finnish biodiversity and to provide more comprehensive information on the occurrence of different species in Finland.

In our presentation, we demonstrate the use of digitized newspaper data and creating maps that show the sightings of the species. We describe critical issues that we have encountered so far in our research. When finding species hiding in newspapers, change and transformation are present in many ways. For instance, changing names of the plants and animals, changing human made borders and changes that invasive and other newly-arrived species bring about are issues to consider. The project brings together reciprocal multidisciplinary competence from different fields of humanities. We also collaborate with natural scientists and communicate our findings with them.