When I experience such weirdness I turn to Corion's fantastic WWW::Mechanize::Shell: 
>perl -MWWW::Mechanize::Shell -eshell
(no url)>get http://genie.dartmouth.edu/scope/
Retrieving http://genie.dartmouth.edu/scope/(200)
http://genie.dartmouth.edu/scope/>dump
POST http://genie.dartmouth.edu/scope/startscope.php (multipart/form-d
+ata) [paramForm]
  paramFile=none                 (hidden readonly)
  upstream=none                  (hidden readonly)
  runBeam=Yes                    (hidden readonly)
  runAmbiguizer=Yes              (hidden readonly)
  runBipartites=Yes              (hidden readonly)
  upstreamType=intergenic        (radio)    [*intergenic/Intergenic|fi
+xed/Fixed]
  group=                         (textarea)
  groupFile=                     (file)
  emailAddress=                  (text)
  emailSubject=                  (text)
  selectParamsButton=Run SCOPE   (submit)

[download]
Gadzooks, no 'species' input in sight, or any other select option! Comparing the Source html to the values we can see via WWW::Mechanize::Shell I would think that since there are no option tags we can't use them as a valid input. They seem to be using JavaScript to populate the options for the select boxes. <joke>Insert anti JavaScript comment here :P </joke>.

WWW::Mechanize does not support JavaScript, When using Firefox with NoScript none of the select boxes have any options, I strongly suspect that this is the problem you face. Why not try automating your browser (via Mozilla::Mechanize or Win32::IE::Mechanize or alike) which does understand JavaScript to achieve your goal.

Hope this helps

Update: Added the sentence "They seem to be using JavaScript to populate the options for the select boxes." for clarity

Martin

In reply to Re: Problem with WWW::Mechanize 'select' method by marto
in thread Problem with WWW::Mechanize 'select' method by monkfan

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.