Sol-Carolina/Wasp_moth_mimicry

Dataset Card for Wasp-Moth Mimicry

This dataset comprises images of pinned insects from four localities around Panama. This represents sympatric species of Euchromiina moths, Hymenoptera and some Diptera. This dataset was created to understand how similar the phenotype of Euchoemiina moths and the Hymenopteran sympatric species. Euchromiina moths are characterized by being mimics of different groups of wasps and bees, but to date, no study has quantified their similarity. This dataset is a small representation of the dataset of the PhD candidate Sol Parra who is studying the phenotypic similarity of this two groups with a focus on wing traits.

Dataset Details

Dataset Structure

/dataset/
    <SP_raw>/
        <location_id 1>.jpg
        <location_id 2>.jpg
        ...
        <location_id n>.jpg
    <SP_nobackground>/
        <location_id 1>.png
        <location_id 2>.png
        ...
        <location_id n>.png
    mw-metadata.csv
    mw-nobg-metadata.csv

Data Instances

This dataset was curated as a subset or sample of wasp-moth mimicry for use at FuncaPalooza. There is one image per species, each of which is named for the location from which the specimen came. There are two metadata files included, one for each folder. mw-metadata.csv and mw-nobg-metadata.csv provided the metadata associated to the moths, wasps, and flies imaged and collected in Panama by Sol Carolina Parra Santos.

They are subdivided in two folders:

1. SP_raw/: Original images, taken of pinned specimens with color standard and scalebar. Their associated metadata file is mw-metadata.csv.
2. SP_nobackground/: Segmented images. These are the original images with the background removed; this was completed by Parra Santos using batch editing on Photoshop. Their associated metadata file is mw-nobg-metadata.csv. All images are named <location_id #>.png with "location" being one of three different communities to which they belong.

Data Fields

An initial metadata file was generated using sum-buddy from the image folder, then separated out by file (using the segmented column values). Both metadata files (mw-metadata.csv and mw-nobg-metadata.csv) thus have the following columns.

• file_name: String. Path to the image from the root of the repository, includes the filename, allows for dataset viewer display.
• filename: String. Filename of the image (<location_id #>.<ext>, raw are JPGs, segmented are PNGs).
• label: String. General label for the creature: wasp, moth, or fly.
• location: String. Location in Panama from which the specimen was collected: Cerro azul, BCI, Gamboa, or Fortuna.
• md5: String. MD5 hash of the image, calculated at file generation using the sum-buddy package. These are unique identifiers for the images.
• segmented: Boolean. True means these are the segmented images (i.e., images with background removed).

Dataset Creation

Curation Rationale

This dataset comprises sympatric insects from different communities around Panama. This includes three taxonomic groups: moths from the subtribe Euchromiina, Hymenopterans, and Dipterans. This dataset was created to understand the phenotypic similarity between the Euchormiina moths and their putative hymenopteran models.

Who are the source data producers?

These images were taken by Sol Carolina Parra Santos from specimens collected in Panama by her as part of her PhD thesis project entitled "Unraveling Wasp Mimicry through Wing Transparency in Euchromiina: Ecological, Evolutionary, and Developmental Insights."

Annotations

The "wasp", "moth", and "fly" labels were assigned by Sol Carolina Parra Santos based on specimen examination. The label "wasp" was given to specimens belonging to the order Hymenoptera, "fly" to specimens from Diptera, and "moth" to specimens from the subtribe Euchromiina and its relatives.

Considerations for Using the Data

Bias, Risks, and Limitations

This dataset contains only a single image per species and is meant as purely a representative sample of wasp-moth mimicry.

Licensing Information

CC0: This dataset is dedicated to the public domain for the benefit of scientific pursuits. We ask that you cite the dataset and journal paper using the below citation if you make use of it in your research.

Citation

@misc{Parra-Santos2025wasp_mimicry,
  author       = {Sol Carolina Parra Santos},
  title        = {Wasp-Moth Mimicry},
  year         = {2025},
  publisher    = {Hugging Face},
  url          = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/Sol-Carolina/Wasp_moth_mimicry}
}

Acknowledgements

This dataset was collected with the support of the Smithsonian Tropical Institute. Additional support was provided by the Imageomics Institute, which is funded by the US National Science Foundation's Harnessing the Data Revolution (HDR) program under Award #2118240 (Imageomics: A New Frontier of Biological Information Powered by Knowledge-Guided Machine Learning). Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Dataset Card Authors

Sol Carolina Parra Santos, PhD candidate, McGill University