New Species New Species Podcast

In part 2 of Taxonomy Basics, Ashleigh Whiffin of National Museums Scotland brings us into the entomology collection to learn the fundamentals of curation and preservation, including which pins to use, the importance of collection data, and much more.

Ashleigh is responsible for the care and development of a collection of 2.5 million insect specimens. She is particularly interested in collections care and science communication, and is a coleopterist, specializing in Carrion beetles (Silphidae). In the UK, she works with the Biological Records Centre to co-organise a National Recording Scheme for Carrion Beetles, promoting the importance of the group and encouraging more people to record them. In 2020, she co-authored an atlas on Silphids and Histerids and has featured on national TV, sharing her passion for these beetles.

Ashleigh recently helped develop a new training resource hosted on the National Museums Scotland website:

https://www.nms.ac.uk/about-us/our-services/training-and-guidance-for-museums/caring-for-entomology-collections/ 

This self-guided resource is an introduction to Caring for Entomology Collections, covering the basics through a combination of videos and text, as well as links for where to go for additional information. 



Taxonomy Basics is a three part series on basic components of species description including collecting, preserving, and describing new species. This series focuses on entomological specimens, but has concepts that work across disciplines. Listen in as Evan Waite, Ashleigh Whiffin, and Marc Milne share their guidelines and discuss important concepts in taxonomy, curation, and beyond. 

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Ashleigh Whiffin - Transcript

Episode image credit: Molly Wilders

Connect with Ashleigh on Instagram/Threads: @ash_whiffin

X: @AshWhiffin

BlueSky: @ashwhffin.bsky.social

More info here: https://www.nms.ac.uk/collections-research/collections-departments/natural-sciences/meet-the-team/ashleigh-whiffin/ 

Places to be involved in virtual curation and other citizen science projects:

https://www.zooniverse.org/

https://scistarter.org/

https://transcription.si.edu/

Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast)

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

In part 1 of Taxonomy Basics, Evan Waite from Arizona State University teaches us all about collecting entomological specimens. From which traps to use to tips on sharing your collection with others, Evan gives us all of the details with some great stories along the way.

Evan is a coleopterist and PhD Candidate at Arizona State University. His work focuses on ground beetles, but he’s broadly interested in beetle diversity and has a personal collection that includes over 2,000 specimens from all across the arthropod world. His collecting and taxonomic work has taken him across the country to many unique habitats, as well as a variety of entomological collections. 

Taxonomy Basics is a three part series on basic components of species description including collecting, preserving, and describing new species. This series focuses on entomological specimens, but has concepts that work across disciplines. Listen in as Evan Waite, Ashleigh Wiffin, and Marc Milne share their guidelines and discuss important concepts in taxonomy, curation, and beyond. 

Connect with Evan online: @Evantomology on all platforms

Read Evan’s paper about collecting bias, including a case study:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10323768/

Watch Evan’s talk “A Journey from Bugs to Birds” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asZWkrmAXZ4&t=3s

Chris Grinter’s website with a guide to collecting permits:

https://www.theskepticalmoth.com/collecting-permits/



UC Davis guide: How to Collect Insects: https://bohart.ucdavis.edu/how-collect-insects



A transcript of this episode can be found here:

Evan Waite - Transcript



Episode image credit: Evan Waite

Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast)

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

“Another spider paper?!” you might ask. “More new spiders, what’s so interesting?” Well in addition to a revised genus and three new species, Adrià Bellvert and Miquel Arnedo’s most recent publication highlights some of the unique challenges taxonomists deal with as they work to untangle species relationships. “I think that the important part [of this paper] is it interfaces very well, it summarizes very well the kind of problems that.. we have to address when we are trying to understand the diversity of mega diverse groups,” says Miquel. Things like deteriorated specimens, missing label information, and difficulty collecting also contribute. But by the end of their story we see that time, effort, and collaboration can bring about some really important findings.



Miquel and Adrià’s paper “Integrating museum collections and molecules reveals genus-level synonymy and new species in red devil spiders (Araneae, Dysderidae) from the Middle East and Central Asia” is in volume 921 of the Journal of European Taxonomy

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.5852/ejt.2024.921.2429

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Adrià Bellvert and Miquel Arnedo - Transcript

 

New Species: Dysdera jaegeri, Dysdera naouelae, and Dysdera kourosh

Episode image credit: Adrià Bellvert

You can follow Adrià and Miquel on Twitter: @AdriaBellvert and @spidersysevo (Miquel’s lab)

Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast)

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

Skinks are one of the most diverse families of lizards, and Ishan Agarwal studies skinks in India, one of the most biodiverse countries in the world. From the forest to the lab to the museum, Ishan shares his experiences investigating a group of cryptic skinks that had quite a few surprises to share, including biology and behavior. What is it about skinks that makes them so captivating? How and why do scientists designate neotypes? Why is a slingshot part of a skink-catching field kit? Find out in this episode of the New Species Podcast.

Read Ishan’s paper here: https://doi.org/10.3897/vz.74.e110674

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Ishan Agarwal - Transcript

New Genus: Dravidoseps

New Species: Dravidoseps gingeeensis, Dravidoseps jawadhuensis, Dravidoseps kalakadensis, Dravidoseps srivilliputhurensis, and Dravidoseps tamilnaduensis. 

Episode image courtesy of Ishan Agarwal

Follow Ishan on Instagram: @Geckoella

Dropbox link to Ishan's papers: https://www.dropbox.com/home/Public/IA%20publications

Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast)

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

Mike Stephan is a lawyer obsessed with scientific etymology, specifically tautonyms, binomial names in which the generic name and species name are exactly the same. Scientific naming conventions and customs have a rich history, and as Mike says, “[taxonomic names] in some perhaps unintended way tell the greater story of human anthropology and history.” Come along for the ride as we discuss etymologies of all shapes, sizes, and redundancies and learn a little about people along the way. 



Order Mike’s book: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/tautonyms-michael-j-stephan/1143958127?ean=9798350910759

Read Mike’s recent paper proposing that botany allow tautonyms:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/tax.12902

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Mike Stephan - Transcript

Interview with Stefano Mammola about spider names: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/jxWszZc24Hb

Interview with Alireza Zamani about a new species named after Brian: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/VhSS5Lf24Hb

Follow Mike on Instagram (and submit your draw-tonym): @Tautonyms 

Episode image courtesy of Mike Stephan

Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast)

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

There are no snakes in Alaska, so what’s that snakelike shape crossing the road? Few people would guess it’s actually thousands of fly larvae moving in a very peculiar pattern that gives the snakeworm gnat their common name. Dr. Thalles Pereira and his coauthors spent lots of time rearing, observing, and sharing their findings with their community in the process of describing this new species, and use citizen science data of this behavior in addition to morphological and molecular analyses in this paper. Listen in as Thalles brings us through the labs and back roads of Alaska to learn why gnats are so special!



Thalles Pereira’s paper “Discovery of snakeworm gnats in Alaska: a new species of Sciara meigen (Diptera: Sciaridae) based on morphological, molecular, and citizen science data” is in volume 6 issue 2 of Integrative Systematics.

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.18476/2023.673937

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Thalles Pereira - Transcript

New Species: Sciara serpens

Episode image courtesy of Thalles Pereira via Integrative Systematics Stuttgart Contributions to Natural History

Check out Thalles’ Researchgate profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Thalles-Pereira-2

Video of the snakeworm larval behavior: https://doi.org/10.7299/X7WM1DQ9

View these specimens and their observational records on Arctos: https://arctos.database.museum/search.cfm?guid_prefix=UAM%3AEnto%2CUAMObs%3AEnto&scientific_name=Sciara%20serpens&scientific_name_match_type=match&family=Sciaridae

Springtail antifreeze protein paper: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-60060-z

Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast)

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod