The options box allows you to configure the website to work in the way you prefer. Provided that your web browser has cookies enabled, the settings you make in the options box will remain for every return visit to the site. Once you've set the options as you require, you can click on the 'Hide' link at the top right of the options box to collapse the options box.
Here you can select whether species are shown by BF (British checklist) or KR (European checklist) number and whether the species are shown in their British or European families.
Here you can select the sequence of species shown on the search results pages where several species are equally matched (e.g. they have the same number of historical records, when sorting by 'most common first' or they match your selection criteria to the same extent, when sorting by 'best match'). This setting has no affect when your sort selection is 'common name', 'latin name', 'bf number' or 'kr number' as these can't have equally matched results (you can't have two species with the same common name for example).
There are several different types of images held for each species and you can select here which ones you prefer to see. Specimen images are images of adult species orientated in a standard way, in a natural, live posture with a neutral background. Aesthetic images are usually images taken in-the-field with the individual presented 'as found' or posed against a pleasing background. If we don't have the particular type of image you prefer for a particular species, the next best image will be shown. Regardless of your preferred image choice, all the available images will be available for you to view on the species page.
If you select 'Search for' larva in the search box, larva images are shown first regardless of the setting here.
Species distribution maps within VC31 are presented with the records split into three temporal groups. You can select the year ranges for each group here. The plots are hierarchical so that a red plot will always appear in preference to a blue or black plot in the same tetrad and blue plots will always appear in preference to black plots in the same tetrad.
The graph shown on the species page can either be a trend graph, showing the year-on-year trend, or can be a flight/larval season graph. The season graph can be displayed as a bar graph or a line graph. The line graph is better for viewing the trend of the season.
The graph of flight/larval season has three plots on it. You can select the year ranges for the plots here. If a plot covers several years, the plotted value is the average for all the years within the range where a record was made (ie. if you select a blank 'From' year - meaning from the start of records - and 2002 as the 'To' year, the plot routine will total the species quantities of all the records up to and including 2002 and divide this by the count of the number of years with at least one record).