Whether in the deep sea of the Antarctic, in the rainforests of Laos or in domestic, pastoral landscapes — scientists from the ten Senckenberg institutes have discovered new species of plants and animals everywhere. They have even made new discoveries in allegedly familiar research collections — either by studying previously unidentified material or using new research methods. “The objective always is to record and preserve the diversity of life on earth, in other words, biodiversity,” explains Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Volker Mosbrugger, Director General of the Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung.

491new species from all parts of the globe were described in the last two years by Senckenberg scientists. The extent of new discoveries ranged from colourful island crabs to the Yellow Dyer Rain Frog and fossilised woodpeckers to the first eyeless huntsman spider. Some of the animals have barely been discovered and are already threatened with extinction. “Taxonomy also serves to protect animal species,” explains Dr. Peter Jäger, arachnologist at Senckenberg and himself the discoverer of 46 new spider species in 2011 and 2012. “Only those who know the species variety can develop the necessary protection programmes.” After all, over 100 animal species still die out every day — despite all of the new discoveries.

In 2011 and 2012 Senckenberg researchers discovered 404 living species and 87 fossilised species, of which 416 live on land and 75 in the oceans. Most of the new species (324) come from Asia, while no fewer than 96 species come from Europe. As expected, due to their renowned biodiversity, the arthropods (which include insects, spiders, crabs and myriapods) led the pack of new discoveries with over 300 species, followed by molluscs (64) and plants (30). Both genetic and traditional methods such as morphological examinations were used. “2012 was the most successful Senckenberg year so far, with 331 newly discovered species,” adds Mosbrugger and continues: “We have therefore described around two percent of all newly discovered species worldwide.”

In the last 5 years Senckenberg scientists have discovered over 1,100 new species. Yet the biologists and palaeontologists do not plan to rest on their laurels. “Estimates to date on the global diversity of species differ greatly: experts estimate the number to be between three and 100 million species,” explains Jäger. What is certain is that most of them have never been seen by humans.

There still remains much to do and there are many exciting things yet to be discovered in the field of taxonomy at the Senckenberg institutes.

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided bySenckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

I am always surprised and puzzled by the world of systematic. Of course I know that it is very important to name another living creature. We need an inventory of life on Earth. We need to have common language. We need system to find out regularities. Etc… What is always surprise me – how fragile and, from my point of view, sometimes subjective the descriptive systematic looks like. I understand that those who spend years with microscopes can distinguish tiny differences between species. But still I am amazed how they judge about new species without genetic analysis and ecological studies.

Nevertheless, hundreds of papers describing new species are published every year. Actually the new species is not the reason for the post – this is just another new species. But the context of new result is sometimes more interesting (and important) than the result itself.

I would probably neglect paper describing “a new species of Cladocera, Extremalona timmsi that was found in acid saline lakes in the southwest of Western Australia” if not the familiar name of the new species.

New species of crustacean

I know Brian Timms as an enthusiast of Australian salt lakes for many years. He is a man who always wants to sample. When I met him last time in Argentina we made a joke on him. We went to the hills and found small pools in rocks. We made photos of these pools and told Brian that there were some small crustaceans in pools. His first reaction was to go and sample. When we add that each small crustacean carried small nameplate with the species name he was a bit disappointed…:)

Two sites were new species were found

Well, let us go back to new species of Cladocera. The paper starts just perfectly to attract my attention: “During a survey of more than 40 acid saline lakes in the Esperance region, Dr Brian Timms found two populations of alonine chydorids in adjacent lakes and forwarded individuals to us for taxonomic determination”. It seems that I can imagine how Brian was sampling these lakes thoroughly inspecting each net. And the result met his expectations. Every naturalist wants that new species will be given his name. Finally, I don not know whether the species described is indeed new species or may be this is just the result of cyclomorphosis (I know that this is the statement which is prohibited in the scientific world). Nevertheless, what is important is that there are hundreds and thousands of new species around the world and to discover them before extinction we need such an enthusiastic naturalists as Brian Timms.

Brian Timms

Artem Y. Sinev & Russell J. Shiel (2012). Extremalona timmsi gen. nov., sp. nov., a new cladoceran (Cladocera: Anomopoda: Chydoridae) from an acid saline lake in southwest Western Australia Journal of Natural History, 46 (45-46), 2845-2864 : 10.1080/00222933.2012.727215

One of the great revolutions in taxonomy was phylogenetic systematics, as articulated by Willi Hennig (why some taxonomists in 2013 still do not embrace the principles of phylogenetic systematics is beyond me, but that’s a rant for another post). One of the most significant implications of a phylogenetic approach is that if our classifications reflect the evolutionary history of a group, we can make predictions about unknown traits of species based on known traits of closely related species. So, if I describe a new species that fits into a genus in which all other known species are predators of snails, for example, it’s a good bet that my new species probably eats snails. But that doesn’t mean we’re always right. Most carabid beetles are predators. But not all. Most spiders are predators. But not all.

I think a lot about the limits of predictability, and the pitfalls of predicting incorrectly, in the context of the insects I know best — the fly family Chloropidae (also known as frit flies, grass flies, or eye gnats). Predictions about the natural history of poorly known species of chloropids are difficult for three reasons: 1) we only know the habits of a very small fraction of the described species; 2) many genera of chloropids are probably not monophyletic, or “natural groups”. In other words, they may include a set of species that are not each other’s closest relatives and thus don’t reflect shared history; and 3) chloropids are one of the most ecologically diverse families of insects on the planet.

Enderleiniella n. sp. (natural history unknown)

A lot of reference books, websites and other resources state that the larvae of most chloropids are phytophagous, feeding on living plant tissues. That statement is almost certainly wrong. Here’s why:

In most groups of insects, the species we know best are those that have an impact on human life. In Chloropidae, the larvae of a few species are pests of cereal crops. And the closely related species in genera such as Oscinella (the group that includes the actual “frit fly”), Meromyza and Chlorops are probably phytophagous too. And it’s tempting to generalize this habit across other genera in the family. That’s where problems arise because most chloropids aren’t in these genera. The family is divided into three subfamilies; let’s look at the known habits of each.

The subfamily Siphonellopsinae is dominated by the large, mostly tropical, genus Apotropina. The larvae of the few species that are known have been reared in association with nests of social or solitary Hymenoptera, where they are apparently scavengers, or have been reared from rotting plant material (scavengers or bacterial grazers). Apotropina is a big genus with lots of described species, but there are many more undescribed species. Phytophagous? Probably not.

A lot of the plant-feeding species fit into the subfamily Chloropinae. Chlorops and Meromyza are both in this subfamily, and multiple species have been reared from grasses and sedges. Several other genera in this subfamily also include species that feed in living plants. But Thaumatomyia is a chloropine too, and the few known larvae are predators of root aphids. Another chloropine genus, Pemphigonotus, includes at least one species with a fondness for rotting crabs on ocean beaches. For the subfamily overall: Mostly phytophagous (probably), but definitely not all.

I’ve saved the biggest mess for last — subfamily Oscinellinae. The most genera and species, and the greatest range of habits. Some genera (Oscinella, Lipara, Dicraeus and others) are phytophagous. Probably. Some other genera are often assumed to be phytophagous, and you can find references to that in the published literature. But groups such as Rhopalopterum and Anatrichus are apparently secondary invaders that scavenge (or may be predators) in feeding galleries made by moths or other flies. Other oscinellines are predators of spider egg sacs, or grasshopper or mantid egg masses. Some are subcutaneous parasites of frogs in Australasia. Some kleptoparasitic species steal meals from spiders and robber flies and assassin bugs. Some feed on frass and debris in bark beetle galleries in trees. Some are scavengers in bee nests. Many are scavengers in decaying plants. Some feed on fungi. A few have a  fondness for carrion. For the vast majority of species, and even genera, we simply do not know their natural history. We do know, though, that if there’s a dominant mode of life, it’s probably saprophagous, feeding in decaying organic material. Mostly phytophagous? Probably not.

There are two main obstacles to sorting out this tremendous ecological diversity in chloropid flies. The first is a taxonomic challenge — the phylogenetic relationships in this family are poorly resolved, which makes it almost impossible to construct a classification that reflects the evolutionary history (and therefore the ecological history) of the group. These flies are also so challenging to sort out morphologically that we have little hope of resolving their higher-level relationships without also incorporating DNA sequence data.

The second challenge is grounded in ecology and natural history. We need more basic observations on what these flies actually do. The habits of even our local species are still so poorly known that we could make great progress simply spending time in the field collecting likely food sources and rearing the flies. My former grad student Fred Beaulieu, now a mite specialist at the Canadian National Collection, reared several local species of chloropids and other flies from grasses, sedges and cattails, helping to document their natural history just a little bit more fully (see Beaulieu & Wheeler 2002 in Publications).

We often tend to think about research projects in terms of posing big questions and testing hypotheses or predictions and accumulating lots of data. But given how little we know about the natural history of many arthropods, we can also make significant advances in knowledge armed with a notebook, some empty pill bottles and a sunny afternoon.

Apart from Beyonce’s bootylicious fly and Lady Gaga’s fern, a new species of crab from Christmas Island has been named for Art Garfunkel, in tribute to his song “Bright eyes” and one can certainly see why!

The paper by Peter Davie and Peter Ng is published in the latest issue of Zootaxa and revises the Chiromantes obtusifron complex. From one wide-spread Indo-West Pacific species, there are now five species with discrete distributions. The real C. obitusifrons is now known to be endemic to Hawaii Islands, while C. garfunkel sp. nov. is endemic to Christmas Island, Indian Ocean.  Chiromantes silus sp. nov. is endemic to Guam. Chiromantes leptomerus sp. nov. is known from Taiwan and the Ryukyu Islands, southern Japan while Chiromantes eurymerus sp. nov. is endemic to Taiwan.

We are pushing out more papers from the museum’s expeditions to Christmas Island (see here and here.) Stay tuned!

Davie, P.J.F & P.K.L. Ng, 2013. A review of Chiromantes obtusifrons (Dana, 1851) (Decapoda: Brachyura: Sesarmidae), with descriptions of four new sibling-species from Christmas Island (Indian Ocean), Guam and Taiwan. Zootaxa 3609(1):1-25 (Preview. Subscription required for full article)

Abstract: The identity of Chiromantes obtusifrons (Dana, 1851), previously considered widespread in the tropical West Pacific region to the eastern Indian Ocean, is revised and found to be a species-complex. Chiromantes obtusifrons is now considered endemic to the Hawaiian Is., and four new species are described from Guam, Taiwan and Christmas Island. Two species live sympatrically in Taiwan. Species separation is based on carapace and frontal shape and granulation, leg proportions, abdominal somite proportions, and distinctive live colouration.

Christy Ullrich

National Geographic News

Published January 7, 2013

Photograph courtesy Frank Glaw

Honestly? Who can resist these little guys!

I’ve always loved ‘tiny’ things. I love bite sized food, baby clothes, and Pygmy Hippos. I especially enjoy those tiny glass Heinz ketchup bottles you find at restaurants or hotels because when I hold them I feel like a giant!

Today I’d like to introduce you to Brookesia micra, the smallest of four new chameleon species found on the African island country of Madagascar.

This special species, with an average adult length of just over an inch from snout to tail, is among the tiniest reptiles in the world!

Why are they so small? Scientists believe these new species of tiny chameleons might represent extreme cases of ‘island dwarfism,’ which occurs when organisms shrink in size due to limited resources.

“The extreme miniaturization of these dwarf reptiles might be accompanied by numerous specializations of the body plan, and this constitutes a promising field for future research.” – study leader Frank Glaw of Germany’s Zoological State Collection

The new chameleon species study was published this week in the journal PLoS ONE.

One of the newly identified species of slow loris, Nycticebus kayan. CREDIT: Ch’ien C Lee

MU Anthropology Doctoral Student Discovers three new, venemous species of primate

The lizard has a beautiful bright blue colouring which can be seen from far away, even in the dense Vietnamese rainforest. It is a truly amazing discovery which only came about due to  a survey of reptiles and amphibians in Vietnam’s Cat Tien National Park. I’m looking forward to hearing about more new interesting discoveries in the future!

You can read more about the blue lizard here: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/colorful-new-lizard-vietnam-animals-science/

A NEW SPECIES OF flying frog has been discovered close to Vietnam’s largest city, surprising researchers.

Dr Jodi Rowely, a biologist from the Australian Museum who led the discovery, was stunned to find the 10cm frog less than 100km from Ho Chi Minh City, one of South East Asia’s largest urban centres with a population of over 9 million people.

“To discover a previously unknown species of frog, I typically have to climb rugged mountains, scale waterfalls and push my way through dense and prickly rainforest vegetation,” says Jodi.

“I certainly didn’t expect to find a new species of frog sitting on a fallen tree in lowland forest criss-crossed by a network of paths made by people and water buffalo, and completely surrounded by a sea of rice paddies,” says Jodi.

New amphibian found near Ho Chi Minh City
The frog is bright green with a white belly and has been named Helen’s tree frog (Rhacophorus helenae) after Jodi’s mother. The discovery was published last month in The Journal of Herpetology.

Jodi said the large frog has likely evaded biologists until now by spending most of its time out of sight, in the canopy of large trees. The frog has webbed hands and feet like parachutes, allowing it to glide from tree to tree.

To date, the species had only been found in two patches of lowland forest close to Ho Chi Minh City. Lowland forests are among the most threatened habitats in the world. In 2011 the Javan Rhino which relied on lowland forests was confirmed extinct in Vietnam.

“The new species is at great risk due to ongoing habitat loss and degradation – the greatest threat to amphibians throughout Southeast Asia – but hopefully it has been discovered just in time to help protect it,” says Jodi.

http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/huge-new-flying-frog-discovered-in-vietnam.htm?_tmc=s1fuf2HtTMTwOjr3WxI17LME68lov6cs-fubIOVdTCg

The critical flaw with Raynal (2001) is that it conflates description and discovery. As for why this is problematic, the dolphin Tursiops australis was described in 2011 but the holotype was collected in 1914 and one lectotype is from 1902 (Charlton-Robb et al. 2011). Differences between the “new” species and other Bottlenose Dolphins are very subtle, so there’s no reason to think the 1902 specimen was the first our species ever encountered. I’d wager that encounter took place closer to 40,000 years ago. There is of course no way to determine who really discovered a species, but determining the earliest scientifically-documented specimen should be more feasible.

It didn’t work out as well as I expected; for 32 of the 90 species I used, the original source did not give a date for the holotype, no holotype existed, or I failed to locate the source. This resulted in me using the same date for “discovery” as the description, an event which only actually happened  once (Lahille 1912). As I planned on finishing this article… ever, I was primarily concerned with holotypes, so there are undoubtedly many earlier specimens I overlooked. My limited data still managed to find a difference of 12.6 years between description and discovery; for the 58 species with data, this average was 19.3 years. Strikingly, the four species described in the 21st Century were on average discovered 55 years earlier, with the most recent being from 1976. Here is a decade-by-decade comparison of description and “discovery”:

It’s interesting how the “discovery” data appears to have a more normal (“bell curve”) distribution. Furthermore, the average date of discovery (1841.5) is closer to the first description (1675, 166.5 years) than the present (171.5 years). This does not bode well for new discoveries and again, I have to point out that most of my dates for “discovery” are probably far too late. For an alternate view, here is a graph of cumulative species descriptions and “discoveries”:

The last cetacean to be “discovered” was Balaenoptera omurai in 1976 and it is certainly notable they were initially considered to be small “form” of Bryde’s Whales (Sasaki et al. 2006). The first Mesoplodon perrini specimen (not a holotype) was discovered in 1975 and mistaken for M. hectori (Dalebout et al. 2002). Mesoplodon peruvianus has a holotype from 1975, but one beached specimen was photographed as early as 1955 (Reyes et al. 1991; Pitman & Lynn 2001). The porpoise Neophocaena asiaeorientalis was described in 1972 but the holotype was from 1922 (Helgen & McFadden 2001). So not only is there a sizable gap between description and discovery in these recent cases, all of the species have close relatives they either have been or could be confused for. If there are still cetaceans out there awaiting discovery, it would seem far more likely that they’re lookalikes hiding in plain sight than the fantastical species Raynal (2001) proposed.

Don’t get me wrong, I think that exciting discoveries will continue to be made about cetaceans; Orcas come in numerous distinct forms and it’s likely other dolphins have some fairly distinct inshore/offshore forms as well, plus there are still some very mysterious beaked whales roaming around.

References:

Anderson, P. (2001) Marine Mammals in the Next One Hundred Years: Twilight for a Pleistocene Megafauna? Journal of Mammalogy 82(3) 623—629 Semi-Available

Andrews, R. (1908) Description of a new species of Mesoplodon from Canterbury Province, New Zealand. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 24 203—215. Available

Anderson, J. (1878) Anatomical and zoological research; comprising an account of zoological results of two expeditions to western Yunnan in 1868 and 1875. Available

Beasley, I et al. (2005) Description of a new dolphin, the Australian snubfin dolphin Orcaella heinsohni sp. n. (Cetacea, Delphinidae). Marine Mammal Science 21(3) 365—400. Available

Brownell, R. et al. (2009) Behavior of Melon-Headed Whales, Peponocephala electra, Near Oceanic Islands. Marine Mammal Science. Available

de Blainville, H. (1838) Sur les cachalots. Ann. fr. étrang. Anat. Physiol. 2 :335—337. Available

Catalog of Living Whales. http://www.ubio.org/apps/Hershkovitz/index.php?func=s&ID=2&t=s

Dalebout, M. et al. (2002) A new species of beaked whale Mesoplodon perrini sp. n. (Cetacea: Ziphiidae) discovered through phylogenetic analyses of mitochondrial DNA sequences. Marine Mammal Science 18, 577-608. Available

Cuvier, G. (1812). Rapport fait à la classe des Sciences mathématiques et physiques, sur divers Cétacés pris sur les côtes de France, pricipalement sur ceux qui sont échoués près de Paimpol, le 7 janvier 1812. Annales du Muséum d’Histoire naturelle 19 13—14. Available

Flower, W. (1882) On the cranium of a new species of Hyperoodon from the Australian seas. Proceedings of The Zoological Society of London 1882 392—396. Available

Gervais, P. (1855) Histoire naturelle des Mamifères. Available

Gray J. (1866) Catalogue of seals and whales in the British Museum. Available

Gray, J. (1865). Notes on the whales of the Cape; by E. L. Layard, Esq., of Cape-Town, Corr. Memb. with descriptions of two new species. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1865 357—359. Available

Gray, J. (1846) Zoology of the voyage of H.M.S. Erebus and Terror. Available

Gray, J. (1828). Spicilegia Zoologica Or Original Figures and Short Systematic Descriptions of New and Unfigured Animals. Available

Helgen, K. & McFadden, T. (2001) Type specimens of recent mammals in the Museum of Comparative Zoology. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology 157(2) 93—181. Available

de Lacépède, B. (1804). Histoire naturelle des cétacées. Available

Lahille, F. (1912) Nota preliminar sobre una nueva especie de Marsopa del rio dela Plata. (Phocaena dioptrica). Anales del Museo Nacional de Historia Natural de Buenos Aires (23) 269—278. Available

Mignucci-Giannoni, A. et al. (1999) New records of Fraser’s dolphin (Lagenodelphis hosei) for the
Caribbean. Aquatic Mammals 25(1) 15—19. Available

Owen, R. (1866) On some Indian Cetacea collected by Walter Elliot, Esq. Transactions of the Zoological Society 6(1) 10—14. Available

Owen, R. (1846) A history of British fossil mammals, and birds. Available

Peale, T. (1848) United States Exploring Expedition during the years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842. VIII. Mammalia and ornithology. Available

Pitman, R. & Lynn, M. (2001) Biological observations of an unidentified mesoplodont whale in the Eastern Tropical Pacific and probable identity: Mesoplodon peruvianus. Marine Mammal Science 17 648—657. Available

Quoy, J. & Gaimard, J. (1824) Voyage autour du monde [...] l’Oranie et la Physicienne [...] Zoologie. Available

Raynal, M. (2001) Cryptocetology and Mathematics: How Many Cetaceans Remain To Be Discovered? Dracontology 81—96. Available.

Raynal, M. & Sylvestre, J.-P. (1991) Cetaceans with two dorsal fins. Aquatic Mammals 17(1) 31—36. Available

Reyes, J. et al. (1991) A new species of Beaked Whale Mesoplodon peruvianus sp. n. (Cetacea: Ziphiidae) from Peru. Marine Mammal Science 7(1) 1—24.

Rudulph, P. & Smeenk, C. (2009) Indo-West Pacific Marine Mammals IN: Perrin, W. et al. (eds.) Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals.

Sasaki, T. et al. (2006) Balaenoptera omurai is a newly discovered baleen whale that represents an ancient evolutionary lineage. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 41 40—52. Available

True, F. (1885) On a new species of porpoise, Phocoena dalli, from Alaska. Proceedings of the United States National Museum 8(7) 95—98. Available

von Haast, J. (1876) On Oulodon: a new genus of Ziphioid Whales. Transactions of the Royal Society of New Zealand 9 450—458. Available

Weir C. (2010) A review of cetacean occurrence in West African waters from the Gulf of Guinea to Angola. Mammal Review 40(1) 2—39. Available

WoRMS (2012). Cetacea. IN: Perrin, W. (2012) World Cetacea Database. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=2688 on 2013-01-05

The new insect has been named the Bazinga Bee (Euglossa bazinga). I have particular fondness for this Bee as it references my favourite character on The Big Bang Theory. For anyone that doesn’t know- those of you that don’t WHY OH WHY- Bazinga is catch phrase used by the great and hilarious Sheldon Cooper. A phrase he uses when he has pulled, what he considers to be, a practically joke on somebody.

The Brazillian Biologist Andre Nemesio said he named the species of Brazilian orchid bee Euglossa bazinga in honor of ‘the clever, funny, nerd character Sheldon Cooper,’ because the bee had tricked scientists for some time due to its similarities with other species.

BAZINGA: Sheldon inspires a Bee

“We are always extremely flattered when the science community embraces our show,” Steven Molaro, an executive producer of “The Big Bang Theory,” said in a statement. “Sheldon would be honored to know that Euglossa bazinga was inspired by him. In fact, after ‘Mothra’ and griffins, bees are his third-favorite flying creatures.”

Although I could never prove that the fish in my pond was a new species, the likelihood that an Amanda Fish or a Holt Lobster could be the next big discovery!

One of the obstacles to using flies as a study group for ecological, evolutionary and conservation research is that a lot of the species are hard to identify, and many of them are undescribed and unnamed species. This means that a lot of knowledge about those species remains inaccessible to the broader scientific community as well as the general public. The need to overcome this so-called “taxonomic impediment” means that taxonomists have, and will continue to have, tons of relevant and important work to do. Among the many ongoing projects in the Lyman Museum, we continue to chip away at little corners of the big taxonomic impediment in the flies.

We described 15 new species in 2012. Their names have been validated according to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, published in refereed journals, and type specimens (the actual specimen that is chosen to be the name-bearer for each species name) deposited in recognized institutional collections. What that means, in a nutshell, is that somebody else who wishes to confirm what these species actually “are”, can find and read the original descriptions that outline the traits that distinguish these species from others, and if there is any doubt as to their identity, they can also locate and examine the actual pinned specimens that the names are based on.

We realize, of course, that there may be a slim chance some of you have not yet sat down to read these taxonomic papers (let’s face it, as crucially important as taxonomic revisions are, they’re not exactly The Hobbit or Harry Potter on the readability scale), so here’s a quick roll call of the new species that Lyman folks introduced to the world in 2012.

Three leaf-miner flies

Stéphanie Boucher is one of the world’s few taxonomic specialists on the diverse and ecologically important agromyzid leaf-miner flies. Stéphanie has been working on the taxonomy and diversity of these flies since 2000 and in 2012 she described three new North American species as part of a Festschrift in The Canadian Entomologist commemorating the editors of the monumental Manual of Nearctic Diptera:

Cerodontha (Icteromyza) griffonensis Boucher is so far known only from the Gaspé Peninsula in eastern Quebec (who says you have to go to the tropics to find new species?)

Cerodontha (Icteromyza) vockerothi Boucher. This species, known from eastern Ontario and Virginia (so far) was named in honour of our colleague, and one of the world’s great dipterists, Dick Vockeroth. Dick was a fountain of information to Stéphanie early in her career as a dipterist (Dick Vockeroth passed away late in 2012. Read more of our reminiscences about Dick here).

Cerodontha (Icteromyza) woodi Boucher is named in honour of another great colleague in Diptera, and a great mentor to students of flies, Monty Wood. The holotype specimen of this new leaf-miner was collected in Muir Woods, California, a redwood forest that is one of the most fantastic habitats on the continent. This species is also known from specimens collected elsewhere in California, near Mt Rainier in Washington, and, oddly enough, Michigan.

Two flies for Ottawa guys: C. (I.) vockerothi (left) and C. (I.) woodi (right)

In addition to these newly described species, Stéphanie also recorded three previously described species in the genus Amauromyza for the first time from Canada, increasing our own known agromyzid fauna. If we are eventually to understand the insect fauna of Canada we not only have to describe unknown species, we have to carry out inventories in order to discover the species that live here who already have names.

Twelve fungus gnats

Chris Borkent’s Ph.D. thesis included a revision of the mycetophilid genus Leptomorphus, a worldwide group of big, beautiful flies, often with spectacular colour patterns (and with some very cool behavior too). More than 30 species were already known in this genus and Chris described a dozen more in a monograph published in Zootaxa (one of our favorite journals!). Meet the new gnats:

Leptomorphus amorimi Borkent is so far known from two specimens collected in southern Brazil. This species was named for our colleague Dr. Dalton de Souza Amorin, one of the leaders of a fantastic and productive community of Brazilian dipterists.

Leptomorphus amorimi, a very fine fly

Leptomorphus brandiae Borkent. This wonderful fly (see a photo here) was named by Chris in honour of his even more wonderful wife Brandi. Leptomorphus brandiae lives in Costa Rica.

Leptomorphus crassipilus Borkent lives in Tucuman, northern Argentina.

Leptomorphus eberhardi Borkent, another Costa Rican species, was named in honour of Dr. W. G. Eberhard, who has made some great contributions to our knowledge of the fascinating behavior of Leptomorphus flies (yes, flies have fascinating behavior!)

Leptomorphus furcatus Borkent is a new North American species that lives in New Mexico, Arizona and northern Mexico.

Leptomorphus mandelai Borkent is known from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. You can probably guess who this species is named after.

Leptomorphus perplexus Borkent. This species, known only from female specimens collected in California, has a lot of primitive traits that made its placement in Leptomorphus a bit confusing at first, hence the species name. It’s sometimes difficult to place a species of Diptera when you have only females, because the male genitalia usually have the most obvious distinguishing characteristics.

Leptomorphus stigmatus Borkent is another African species, this time from Tanzania. stigmatus means “spots”, and this species has distinctive spots on its thorax.

Leptomorphus tabatius Borkent lives on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, one of Earth’s biodiversity hotspots. The name tabatius means “fat belly” in Tolaki, the language of the people who inhabit the region where the type specimen was collected.  It’s a fat little fly.

Leptomorphus tagbanua Borkent was collected on Coron Island in the Philippines. It’s named after the Tagbanua people, who have lived on this island, and others in the Philippines, for a very long time.

Leptomorphus titiwangsensis Borkent. Hold your giggles; this fly was named after the Titiwangsa Mountains in Malaysia, where the type specimens were collected.

Leptomorphus waodani Borkent is another South American species, known from Ecuador. The specimen was collected in a rainforest canopy-fogging project carried out on the traditional territories of the Waodani people.

That’s 15 species down, thousands to go. Look for some more new species from Team Lyman in 2013; there are a bunch of new things on the horizon and lots of new species waiting to see the light of day.

The 20 years of the Convention has seen biodiversity depletion continue unabated, and although there have been numerous individual success stories and some signs of hope, the general trend remains the same : a steady slide towards an Eremozoic future.  Those binding decisions which have been agreed by the Convention conferences have been disappointing in scope, and meaningful global agreements which might seriously tackle the biodiversity crisis have been elusive.  From that point of view, the CBD has failed.

In its favour, the Convention has been an important focus of international awareness, and does at least put the issue of biodiversity conservation on the diplomatic agenda – the intention is there, in black-and-white, in the text of the Convention.  Furthermore, the CBD has spawned various targets which set out measurable goals for “biodiversity indicators“, although I don’t see most of them being met; as biodiversity continues to be ravaged, it’s arguably a good thing to have the UN admitting, in terms of definite criteria, that it’s happening, and that governments are incapable of implementing their own plans to tackle it.  At least that would reinforce the urgency of the problem, and the scale of change required.

The frustration remains that the convoluted process of conferences, protocols, targets and so on are, in the main, failing to do the job.  There is a strong impression that, although the CBD is legally binding, it is not taken as seriously as certain other UN Conventions when it comes to compliance.  There is also the notable omission of the USA on the list of ratifying nations, which otherwise includes nearly every territory on earth.  It says something about how seriously the most powerful country on the planet takes the CBD process when it consistently refuses to ratify and implement it.

US President Barack Obama has a reputation for being relatively sympathetic to environmental concerns – not difficult considering his predecessors!  He has been honoured by having several new species named after him during 2012, including a darter fish, Etheostoma obama, a californian trapdoor spider, Aptostichus barackobamai, and an extinct lizard, Obamadon gracilis (which didn’t survive the previous mass extinction 65million years ago); he’s also previously had a lichen, Caloplaca obamae, named after him.

These species will, naturally, be unaware of their link to the most powerful politician on earth (and Obamadon gracilis, of course, is now, forever unaware of anything).  The taxonomists who chose the names surely did so, at least in part, with the intention of attracting attention and awareness of their new discoveries (not least from the US political establishment itself).  We don’t know how these newly discovered “Obama species” will fare over the next 20 years of the CBD; but, in common with the less-glamorously named majority of species, they’re likely to need all the good fortune they can get.  A more meaningful badge of conservation committment for Obama than these cute namings would be to prioritise persuading the US Senate and Congress to ratify the CBD, and then, crucially, to start to make that mean something.

It was, at 4.7 mm (plus 5.8-mm ovipositor) the largest torymid I’d ever seen.  Unlike most chalcids, this is a bug you’d notice if it landed on you.  I posted this photo to BugGuide.net, and ichneumon specialist Bob Carlson showed it to a torymid specialist friend of his, who said, “This is almost certainly Torymus tubicola (Osten Sacken).  It’s one of the most widespread of all Torymus species.”  I checked Johnson (1930)*, and this happens to be the only torymid species that has been documented on Nantucket (Johnson had it listed as Syntomaspis tubicola, family Callimomidae, but at least the species name was the same so it wasn’t too hard to decipher.  Osten Sacken’s original name had been Callimome tubicola.)  Which means that the other three torymids I’ve raised from galls collected on Nantucket will be new for the island’s list, once I get them identified.

Anyway, a few days later an equally large torymid emerged from a white oak bullet gall collected near my house.  (I keep collecting these common galls, hoping to get a photo of Disholcaspis quercusglobulus, the cynipid that causes them, but so far I’ve just gotten a different parasitoid each time.)

I assumed it was going to be another Torymus tubicola, the extra blue tinge being some artifact of lighting, but in comparing it with the first wasp, I noticed the much larger dark spots on its wings and the red-tipped abdomen.  So I posted this one to BugGuide too, and shortly Bob Carlson reported: “My torymid contact thinks it 100% sure that this is an undescribed species and among the most distinctive of Torymus species because of the large stigmal stain and the red tipped abdomen.”  So this brings the number of new species I’ve found to… I’m not sure, but I’m going to start adding a “new species” tag to my blog posts to keep track of these things.

* Johnson, Charles Williston. 1930. A List of the Insect Fauna of Nantucket, Massachusetts. Publications of the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association Vol III, No. 2.

A new small primate with a toxic bite and distinctive facial fur markings has been discovered in the jungles of Borneo. The new slow loris species is found in the highlands of the island of Borneo and has been named Nycticebus kayan, after a major river, the Kayan, flowing through the region.

http://tinyurl.com/c4ygqpf

Researchers have named a newly discovered, prehistoric lizard “Obamadon gracilis” in honor of the 44th president’s toothy grin.

The small, insect-eating lizard was first discovered in eastern Montana in 1974, but a recent re-examination showed the fossil had been wrongly classified as a Leptochamops denticulatus and was in fact a new species, researchers told Reuters on Tuesday.

Obamadon gracilis was one of nine newly discovered species reported on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In naming the new species, scientists from Yale and Harvard universities combined the Latin “Obamadon” for “Obama’s teeth” and “gracilis,” which means slender.

“The lizard has these very tall, straight teeth and Obama has these tall, straight incisors and a great smile,” said Nick Longrich, a paleontologist at the school in New Haven, Connecticut.

It was believed to have lived during the Cretaceous period, which began 145.5 million years ago. Along with many dinosaurs from that era, the lizard died out about 65 million years ago when a giant asteroid struck earth, scientists say.

Longrich said he waited until after the recent U.S. election to name the lizard.

“It would look like we were kicking him when he’s down if he lost and we named this extinct lizard after him,” he said in an interview.

“Romneydon” was never under consideration and “Clintondon” didn’t sound good, said Longrich, who supported Hillary Clinton’s failed run against Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary.

Obama is not the first politician whose name has been used to help classify organisms. Megalonyxx jeffersonii, an extinct species of plant-eating ground sloth, was named in honor of President Thomas Jefferson, an amateur paleontologist who studied the mammal.

Earlier this year, researchers announced they had named five newly identified species of freshwater perch after Obama, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Jimmy Carter and Theodore Roosevelt.

In 2005, entomologists named three species of North American slime-mold beetles agathidium bushi, agathidium cheneyi and agathidium rumsfeldi in honor of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld – the U.S. president, vice president and secretary of defense at the time.

Other celebrity names also have been used to name new species. A small Caribbean crustacean has been named after reggae icon Bob Marley, an Australian horsefly has been named in honor of hip-hop star Beyonce, and an endangered species of marsh rabbit has been named after Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner.

http://news.yahoo.com/yale-names-toothy-dinosaur-obamadon-smiling-president-200415370.html