The Symbiota Virtual Flora/Fauna project is an open source software project, with central goal of developing on-line tools that aid in the generation, exploration and management of biodiversity data (collection specimens, observations, images, checklist, keys, etc.). See also: http://bdj.pensoft.net/articles.php?id=1114 and http://symbiota.org/
Every time we read images through the url from db, there is a lag. It usually take 1-3 seconds to load