Hearing loud grunts outside late one night on Kaua'i, Clayton Young picked up his flashlight, a camera and set off in the dark.

"I was staying with friends in Kilauea and they'd warned me about the noise," Young said. "I had to go find what it was." For the former biology teacher, it was a mission.

The culprit — a bullfrog — hopped away but not before Young froze him in the beam of his flashlight and snapped his photo.

Curious about what kind of frog could make such a noise, Young e-mailed the photo and habitat details to the Bishop Museum's Ask A Scientist online forum. Allen Allison, the museum's herpetologist (one who studies amphibians and reptiles), posted a reply.

"This is a bullfrog, Rana catesbiana. ..." wrote Allison, going on to provide information about the frog's habitat and nocturnal eating habits (which include other frogs).

ANSWERS ONLINE

Ask a Bishop Museum Scientist, an online forum, lets people post images of unusual plants, insects, fungus, shells, rocks, in fact anything bizarre from the natural world to be identified by the staff.

Shelley James, associate botanist at the Bishop Museum, set up the program last year, inspired by the creativity and diversity she found on other museum sites. She vets the photos, answers questions or fields them to colleagues in other departments.

"It's a cool way to help the public understand what we scientists do here at the museum," James said. "It's a way to make us more accessible to the public. Our herbarium has hundreds of thousands of specimens, and we have 40 scientists and technicians on staff.

Participants sign up for a flickr image and video hosting account from a link on the Bishop Museum Web site and are then able to post photos and ask questions.

In fact, the museum's expertise is formidable, a kind of collective cranium of information from botanists, entomologists, geologists, zoologists, malacologists and herpetologists and more.

Anyone with a question can e-mail a digital photo, and ask questions.

"Joz" posted a photo of a pretty yellow flower/weed from Kaloko-Honokohau National Historical Park on the Big Island. James identified it as Talinum fructicosum, a harmless plant, non-native to Hawai'i.

Another user sent in a photo of a strange, 6-inch-long sea creature, found at Sandy Beach. A sea slug? Definitely, but which species? The online discussion that followed provides a great example of scientists at work, said James.

Not all specimens are innocent.

When Nalani Cook and her daughter Aslan found an interesting looking worm on a rock in their Manoa yard, they took it to the museum for identification. The worm was interesting, said Aslan, "because it was slimy, thin, flat underneath and pointy at both ends, one of which had a red dot. It also liked to crawl from the top of the leaf to the underside of the leaf."

James identified the worm as a native carnivorous flatworm that preys on other invertebrates. "You don't want to handle them; they can carry rat lung worm and may transmit meningitis," she warned.

100 AND COUNTING

Since the program began last fall, museum scientists have identified about 100 specimens, ranging from beautiful moths to unusual shells to a miniature orchid species found only in the Marshall Islands. "We answer questions relating to anywhere in the Pacific," James said.

Typically a response is posted within three days, often a lot faster. "Insects are the most difficult to identify," James said. You really have to see all their body parts," (and they're tricky to photograph).

James hopes to extend the program's outreach to get more schoolchildren and teachers involved.

"We'd like to holoholo out to schools for some hands-on science," she said. "That way we can really help kids learn about the scientific process and how scientists think."