Author: Katrin Jivkova

New species of pygmygoby discovered at the edge of the Red Sea’s unexplored deep reefs

Charon’s pygmygoby, named for the golden “coins” on its tail, is known from just two specimens.

Researchers have described a new species of fish from the northern Red Sea, found at the entrance to a cave on a steep reef slope. Charon’s pygmygoby (Trimma charon) is a small, translucent fish with a broad orange-red stripe, golden spots on its tail, and an unusual four-part eye. The two known specimens measure just 12 and 17 millimetres.

The study was led by Viktor Nunes Peinemann at the Marine Science Program, Division of Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia. His co-authors are Matthew D. Tietbohl Talas and Michael L. Berumen of KAUST, and Sergey V. Bogorodsky of the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum Frankfurt, Germany. It is published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

A name inspired by gold coins

The species is named after Charon, the ferryman of Greek mythology who carried the dead across the river into the underworld. The dead were traditionally buried with a coin to pay for the crossing.

“One of the most striking features of the new species is the golden spots scattered across its tail fin. They cover most of the fin and resemble small gold coins.”

– Viktor Nunes Peinemann

The name also reflects where the fish may live. The team suspects the species is more common on deep “mesophotic” reefs below 30 metres, which remain largely unexplored.

“These dark, deeper, unexplored reefs could be viewed as a kind of ‘underworld’ beneath the shallow, well-lit, and better studied reefs most of us are more familiar with.”

Freshly collected Trimma charon sp. nov., paratype, live, ROMI118237, 12.1 mm SL. Photograph: V.N. Peinemann.

A clue to deeper discoveries

The fish was collected in May 2023 at Walih Island, at 30 metres, the maximum depth of the team’s scientific diving. Despite extensive searches of similar habitats since, it has not been seen again. “So far, the entire species is known from only a single encounter and two specimens,” said Peinemann. The team suggests it may simply be the shallow edge of a species that mostly lives deeper. “Red Sea reefs below that depth almost certainly hold more undiscovered gobies.”

The new species looks similar to the pallid pygmygoby (Trimma anaima), which is found from East Africa to the Pacific but has never been recorded in the Red Sea. Genetic data suggest the two are close relatives, though further work is needed to confirm this. “While one species seems to have spread across much of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, its closest relative appears to have stayed in the Red Sea and evolved separately for millions of years,” said Peinemann.

Trimma avidori – an abundant Red Sea species. Photograph: V.N. Peinemann.

A field guide for hard-to-spot fishes

With this discovery, 11 Trimma species are known from the Red Sea, making it the most species-rich goby genus in the region. At least nine appear to be found nowhere else in the world. The paper also provides an illustrated identification key to all 11 species, along with photographs and field notes on where each lives.

In situ photographs of Red Sea Trimma species. A. T. avidori; B. T. filamentosus; C, D. T. barralli; E. T. sheppardi; F. T. quadrimaculatum. All photographs taken in the Red Sea. Photographs by V.N. Peinemann (panels A, D); by F. Krasovec (panel B); by S.V. Bogorodsky (panels C, E, F).

“Knowing which species are present, how to accurately identify them, and where they live, is the most foundational step to building a stronger understanding of these species and ecosystems. They still have many secrets and deserve much more attention.”

– Viktor Nunes Peinemann

Photo collage of each Red Sea species of Trimma. Photographs by V.N. Peinemann.

Original source

Peinemann VN, Bogorodsky SV, Tietbohl Talas MD, Berumen ML (2026) Trimma charon, a new species of pygmygoby (Teleostei, Gobiidae) from the Red Sea with a key to the Red Sea species of the genus. ZooKeys 1293: 1–16. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1293.204097

For more articles on zoology, visit the ZooKeys website and follow the journal on BlueSky and Facebook.

ARPHA and the European Association of Science Editors expand their partnership to benefit journal editors

Journal editors across ARPHA-hosted journals gain access to EASE membership and free training places.

Pensoft Publishers is pleased to announce a deepening of ARPHA’s collaboration with the European Association of Science Editors (EASE), bringing new benefits to the editors of all journals published on the ARPHA Platform.

A partnership built on shared goals

The collaboration began in 2020, when ARPHA took over the hosting and publishing of EASE’s official journal, European Science Editing (ESE), and moved it to an online open-access diamond open access model, free for both authors and readers. The move marked a turning point: ESE evolved from what was essentially a newsletter for Association members into a fully fledged, peer-reviewed academic journal.

Since then, ESE has been indexed in Scopus and Web of Science and has received its first Impact Factor – 1.6, with the journal positioned in the 2nd quartile of the Library and Information Science category. Its growth shows what a strong publishing partnership can achieve for a society journal.

What the agreement means for ARPHA journals

Building on this success, ARPHA and EASE have agreed to extend the benefits of the partnership to the wider ARPHA community. The agreement is already in effect, and each journal hosted on ARPHA can nominate one representative, typically the editor-in-chief or another designated editor, to take advantage of the following:

  • A full EASE membership subscription, including access to the Association’s resources, regular webinars, the member newsletter, and discounted event rates; it also connects editors to a community of editing and publishing professionals across Europe and beyond
  • A free place in the EASE Editorial School for Journal Editors; EASE’s flagship training programme is a multi-part workshop that covers the editorial and peer-review workflow, and it normally carries a fee, though each ARPHA journal is entitled to one free place

Sharing knowledge with the wider community

In the spirit of open science and of supporting journals at every stage of development, ARPHA and EASE are also planning joint activities open to the whole scholarly publishing community. Pensoft is additionally looking forward to taking part in the 19th EASE Conference in Brighton, UK, in June 2027.

“We are delighted to deepen our relationship with Pensoft Publishers and are looking forward to welcoming ARPHA editors into our membership and to offer them a free place in our Editorial School for Journal Editors. Our partnership is important to us and I am sure it will flourish in the coming years as our journal grows its impact and influence.”

– Mary Hodgson, EASE Secretary

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About ARPHA
ARPHA is a full-featured open access publishing platform for journals, books and data, with managed hosting services. Several other services (website design and setup, production, semantic markup, distribution, archiving, indexing, promotion, journal management and more) are available on choice. More at https://arphahub.com.

About EASE
The European Association of Science Editors is a community of scholarly editors and communication professionals, dedicated to building trust in research by raising editorial quality. Through expert resources, practical guidance, and a strong international network, EASE drives excellence in every stage of the editorial process. More at ease.org.uk.

TETTRIX, a new EU project for taxonomy innovation and biodiversity research welcomes Pensoft as a partner

Pensoft is helping TETTRIX make taxonomic knowledge more accessible, connected, and valuable to the wider biodiversity community.

TETTRIX, a new €12 million EU project, aims to connect Europe’s taxonomic data, expertise and training to support biodiversity research and conservation. The four-year Horizon Europe project, coordinated by the Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities (CETAF), held its kick-off meeting in Brussels, Belgium, on 7-9 October 2026.

According to the 2019 global assessment by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), around one million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction worldwide. Taxonomy – the science of naming, identifying and classifying species – provides the reliable identities and reference knowledge needed to recognise species, track changes in biodiversity, and inform conservation and environmental policy.

Structured around four complementary pillars – Integrate, Transform, Upskill and Demonstrate – the project will support innovation and collaboration across the European taxonomic community while expanding opportunities for external organisations to contribute to its objectives.

Pensoft’s role

Pensoft holds a keen interest in taxonomy and its role in biodiversity conservation. We have been collaborating with the taxonomic community for a long time now, and back in 2021, CETAF, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and Pensoft worked together on the Red List of Insect Taxonomists project – a European Commission-funded initiative, which aimed to assess the available taxonomic expertise on insects across Europe and help identify insect taxa that are threatened by extinction.

Expanding from this interest and our extensive research in the field, in TETTRIX, Pensoft will help map the European taxonomic landscape using publication data and dynamic visualisations, and support the curation of expertise for the TETTRIX Marketplace, while advising on its functionality.

At Pensoft, we believe science has the greatest impact when it is accessible, shared and connected to the people who can use it. That’s why we’re excited to be part of TETTRIX and to help bring the project’s work to a wider audience, connect people and knowledge, and make sure the results don’t just stay within the project, but are shared, used, and built on by the wider community.

– Prof. Dr. Lyubomir Penev, CEO and Founder of Pensoft

In addition to our scientific work, Pensoft will also take part in the publicity and communication side of the TETTRIX project. As a coordinator of Pillar 3: Capacity building & knowledge transfer and a lead of WP9: Outreach and Knowledge Transfer, Pensoft will contribute to enhancing TETTRIX’s visibility, stakeholder engagement, and long-term impact by connecting taxonomic knowledge and project results with researchers, policymakers, stakeholders, and wider society.

This will include developing the project’s visual identity and website, producing promotional materials, and engaging audiences through social media, newsletters, and press releases. Pensoft will also communicate the outcomes of the Satellite projects – third-party initiatives, funded by TETTRIX, which will help research and respond to present-day issues in biodiversity – through targeted content and communication campaigns.

Throughout the project, Pensoft will upkeep the TETTRIs legacy of promoting Taxonomy Recognition Day, celebrated every year on 23 May, and continue developing the #NameItToSaveIt campaign for taxonomic action.

The TETTRIX consortium

Coordinated by CETAF (Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities), TETTRIX brings together 19 partnering organisations from 12 countries to help Europe better understand, protect, and sustainably manage nature.

  1. Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities (CETAF) – Belgium
  2. Natural History Museum Vienna (NHMW) – Austria
  3. National Museum of Natural History (MNHN) – France
  4. Free University of Berlin (FUB) – Germany
  5. Senckenberg Nature Research (SENCKENBERG) – Germany
  6. Meise Botanic Garden (MeiseBG) – Belgium
  7. Naturalis Biodiversity Center (NATURALIS) – Netherlands
  8. University of Crete (UoC) – Greece
  9. KPMG International (KPMG) – Netherlands
  10. University of Lisbon (ULISBOA) – Portugal
  11. Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) – Germany
  12. Pensoft Publishers (PENSOFT) – Bulgaria
  13. Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) – Norway
  14. University of Helsinki (LUOMUS) – Finland
  15. State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart (SMNS) – Germany
  16. Royal Botanic Gardens Kew (RBGK) – UK
  17. Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences (IBOT-CAS) – Czech Republic
  18. Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) – UK
  19. Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS) – Belgium

For more information:

Visit the TETTRIX project website at tettrix.eu, and make sure to follow the project’s progress via our social media channels on Bluesky, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook.

Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO) journal joins the Publish, Review, Curate Alliance as a founding member

The Alliance promotes a researcher-centred model for scholarly publishing in which research outputs are first published and then subjected to open peer review and editorial curation.

The open-science journal Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO), published by the open-access scholarly publisher and technology innovator Pensoft Publishers, became one the founding members of the new Publish, Review, Curate (PRC) Alliance, a coalition of more than 40 funders, universities, publishers, platforms and infrastructure providers aiming to promote innovation around scholarly publishing workflows.

RIO has been operating a very similar model and will have transitioned to a full PRC model by mid-2027. Additional journals from Pensoft’s portfolio are expected to follow suit shortly thereafter.

About the PRC Alliance

The PRC Alliance promotes a researcher-centred model for scholarly publishing in which research outputs are first published and then subjected to open peer review and editorial curation. This decoupled approach makes findings available more quickly, while giving readers greater insight into the comprehensiveness of the work.

The Alliance is a joint initiative of the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR) and ASAPbio, and it will be hosted by COAR as part of the COAR Notify Project in its first year of operation. The list of founding members includes high-profile organisations and Open Science innovators, such as the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Gates Foundation, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), Europe PMC, Peer Community In (PCI) and Review Commons.

Why RIO?

Since its launch in 2015, RIO has been catalysing culture change in research communication by publishing early, intermediate and final scientific outputs from across the entire research cycle. With RIO, the entire research process, including work that would normally be lost, receives efficient and timely visibility, discoverability and recognition, as well as permanent availability, accessibility and citability.

Amongst the journal’s publication types are Research Ideas, Grant Proposals, Data/Software Management Plans, Workshop/Project Reports and many others. Aiming to bring together the whole research cycle, the journal also welcomes outputs from later stages, such as Research Articles, Review Articles, Software Descriptions and Policy Briefs.

Of these, some publication types are exempt from mandatory review evaluation and proceed to publication straight away following an in-house integrity check. In all cases, RIO publications are open to post-publication review, where all evaluations would be made public, signed, and provided with DOIs.

RIO Journal 5 years on: over 300 published outcomes from all around the research cycle

Since its inception, RIO has been continuously implementing various open-science innovations and workflows to enhance transparency and FAIRness in scholarly communication. These include SDG mapping for each publication; permanently linked updated versions of previously published content; open-science project-branded collections designed to bring together all outputs coming from a specific scientific project regardless of their publication source; and a user-friendly nanopublication workflow meant to further improve the reusability and granularity of published outputs in a machine-comprehensible manner for our AI-powered age.

RIO shifts gears to serve as a project-driven knowledge hub

Furthermore, as part of Pensoft’s academic portfolio, RIO runs on a technologically advanced platform optimised for accessibility, discoverability, machine-readability and reusability. In its latest installment, Pensoft’s publishing environment features a wide array of functionalities and workflows designed to ensure available research outputs are AI-FAIR, matching the needs and expectations in an AI-driven world.

The RIO journal has long stood out as a pioneer in expanding the concepts of scholarly publication, peer review and scientific literature curation so that the community benefits from more timely and efficient access, use and recognition of research effort. As such, it makes perfect sense for RIO to move to a full PRC model and join the PRC Alliance in this new effort to improve openness of research.

Pensoft’s vision

Through its participation in the Alliance, Pensoft hopes that the PRC model can support and encourage research shared at a more granular level, while also providing greater visibility and recognition for valuable scientific work that would not typically see the light of day. This could include documents for individual steps of the research cycle, as well as nanopublication-style atomic units of knowledge. Pensoft also looks forward to working with fellow members to coordinate efforts and to support innovative PRC initiatives.

“As a collaborative and formal community of experts in the field, the Alliance provides an unprecedented opportunity to fuel wider and responsible adoption of the PRC model, which has become a necessity in academia due to current challenges in scholarly communication. This is why it’s an honour to be amongst the founding members of this fantastic community.”

– Pensoft’s CEO and founder Prof. Dr. Lyubomir Penev

“RIO is about publishing the research process in a granular fashion, about inviting criticism and collaboration throughout, and about communicating the process and its outcomes efficiently and sustainably to researchers, the wider public and to machines. With the PRC Alliance, we have found partners whose approach to gardening the research landscape is similar, and we’re looking forward to fruitful exchanges with them and their respective communities.”

– Daniel Mietchen, Editor-in-Chief of Research Ideas and Outcomes

About Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO)

Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO) is an open science journal that publishes outputs from any stages of the research cycle on a single collaborative platform, with an open and public peer-review process. It is part of the academic portfolio of Pensoft Publishers.

About Pensoft Publishers

Pensoft is an independent, open-access scholarly publisher and technology provider, best known for its 30+ biodiversity journals, including ZooKeys, Biodiversity Data Journal, PhytoKeys, MycoKeys, One Ecosystem, and Metabarcoding and Metagenomics. Ever since becoming the first to introduce semantic enrichments and hyperlinks within a scientific article in the field of biodiversity in 2010, Pensoft has been working on various tools and workflows designed to facilitate data findability, accessibility, discoverability and interoperability.

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For more information on the Publish, Review, Curate Alliance and its full list of founding members, visit https://publish-review-curate.org.

A millipede from South Australia has been rediscovered and described 90 years after it was first collected

Colobothrix deckeri is the first in its moisture-loving family to be found in a part of Australia with a low annual rainfall.

The new species Colobothrix deckeri is in the millipede family Dalodesmidae. It is remarkable because it is the first in its moisture-loving family to be found in a part of Australia with a low annual rainfall, between 400 and 500 mm.

Colobothrix deckeri. Mesibov, 2026. Image by Ben Parslow, SAMA.

The new species is also unusual for the shape of its sphaerotrichomes, which are tiny ball-shaped structures found on the legs of mature males in Dalodesmidae and some other millipedes. Sphaerotrichomes normally have a long, pointed seta emerging from the ball. The new species has been placed in the new genus Colobothrix, which means “stunted hair”, because the seta on its sphaerotrichomes is reduced to a short, blunt rod.

A cluster of sphaerotrichomes on a leg of C. deckeri. Scanning electron micrograph image by Robert Mesibov.

Colobothrix deckeri was named by Australian myriapodologist Robert Mesibov in honour of German colleague Peter Decker, who played a key role in the story behind the species rediscovery, as described in the peer-reviewed, open-access journal ZooKeys.

The first specimen of C. deckeri was collected in 1936 and deposited as an unidentified millipede in the South Australian Museum (SAMA). In 2015 Decker found the specimen among many he borrowed from the Museum for his PhD work on another millipede family, Paradoxosomatidae.

Decker recognised the specimen as a dalodesmid and sent images of its microscopic characters to Mesibov, who is a dalodesmid specialist. The specimen was the first evidence for Dalodesmidae in dry South Australia, and in 2016 and 2017 Mesibov searched the 1936 locality on South Australia’s lower Yorke Peninsula for fresh material. Both searches were unsuccessful, although the two trips yielded a new paradoxosomatid.

Meanwhile, arachnologists Michael Rix and Danilo Harms had been sampling spiders and associated litter invertebrates on Kangaroo Island, South Australia, about 50 km south of the 1936 locality. In 2010 they discovered a remarkable new species of assassin spider from a single site in the relatively wet northwestern corner of the island. They also collected several specimens of the new, still unidentified millipede at the same site and deposited them in the Western Australian Museum (WAM).

Early this year, Mesibov found the WAM millipede record online. He emailed WAM curator Mark Harvey, who kindly provided several images of the millipede collected by Rix and Harms, with close-ups of its diagnostic characters. The images showed that the 2010 Kangaroo Island specimens were the same species that had been collected in 1936 on the Yorke Peninsula.

Kangaroo Island suffered devastating bushfires in 2020. It was feared that the new assassin spider had been pushed towards extinction by the fires, because the 2010 site had been burned out. In 2021, arachnologist Jessica Marsh searched for the new assassin spider on Kangaroo Island. She found more specimens in 2021 at sites several kilometers distant from the 2010 site, and her by-catch included the new millipede.

“Third time lucky! I found the new millipede alive and well this year at relatively wet sites not far from its 2010 and 2021 localities.”

– Robert Mesibov

He collected a few specimens for description and future genetic analysis, and the 1936, 2021 and 2026 specimens are now all housed in SAMA.

An unanswered question is whether C. deckeri still lives on South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula, which is much drier than northwestern Kangaroo Island.

“The 1936 locality is underlain by limestone, and the rock is broken where it is exposed at the ground surface. I wonder if the species survives in small voids in this bedrock, as a relict from wetter periods in South Australia’s past. That might explain why I couldn’t find it in 2016 and 2017, and how it could persist in such a dry climate.”

– Robert Mesibov

Original source:

Mesibov R (2026) Two new millipede genera and species from Kangaroo Island, South Australia (Polydesmida, Dalodesmidae, Spirostreptida, Cambalidae). ZooKeys 1295: 277-291. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1295.214938

For more articles on zoology, visit the ZooKeys website and follow the journal on BlueSky and Facebook.

Honouring a Pioneer: The Return of Marianne Plehn’s Type Specimen

How did a nearly dried-out specimen in a Jena museum reconnect science with Marianne Plehn’s remarkable legacy?

Some of the best scientific discoveries are not made in the field or the lab, but in the dusty corners of a museum. Bernhard L. Bock, a curator at the Institute for Zoology and Evolutionary Research & Phyletisches Museum at Friedrich Schiller University Jena, has done just that. His study, published open access in Natural History Collections and Museomics (NHCM), describes the rediscovery of a type specimen of the polyclad flatworm Plehnia arctica, presumed lost for more than a century.

A jar nobody was looking for

The specimen was collected in July 1889 during Wilhelm Kükenthal and Alfred Walter’s Arctic expedition to Spitsbergen. The trip nearly ended in disaster when their ship was crushed by pack ice in June, but the crew was rescued four days later and carried on. The flatworms were handed to the zoologist Arnold Lang, who passed them to his talented student, Marianne Plehn. She described the species in 1896 as Acelis arctica, and the genus was later renamed Plehnia in her honour.

As was common in the nineteenth century, no one recorded where the type specimens were kept afterwards, and they simply vanished from the record. The Jena specimen resurfaced when previously forgotten collection material was reorganised, and Bock found a small ground-stopper jar holding an almost dried-out polyclad, with just a little liquid keeping it from drying out completely. Its original label, handwritten by Ernst Haeckel, was still attached. An entry in Haeckel’s own ledger from 1896 confirmed the link to Plehn’s work.

The cabinet where the type specimen was found. Photo credit: Bernhard Bock.

Detective work

Of the three specimens Plehn originally examined, only this one is known to survive. Bock wrote to institutions across Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Switzerland and Norway in search of the others, without luck. He then carefully rehoused the specimen in 70% ethanol, conserved its fragile label and photographed it in high resolution for the first time. The worm is around 55 mm long and 36 mm wide, and, just as Plehn reported, it has no eyes.

The type specimen, preserved in the original glass it was stored. Photo credit: Bernhard Bock.

Who was Marianne Plehn?

Bock is keen that the story does not stop at the specimen. Plehn, he explains, is best known for co-founding fish pathology alongside Bruno Hofer:

“She helped lay the foundational framework for fish pathology and treatment. She described and classified various freshwater fish diseases.”

Her research covered parasitic and environmental diseases, including liver and metabolic disorders in salmonids and bacterial infections in commercial fisheries. In 1924 she published the Praktikum der Fischkrankheiten, which “became a standard diagnostic and teaching handbook for zoologists, veterinarians or fisheries managers across Europe for a long time”.

Her path was far from easy. Women in Germany were excluded from higher education until the early 1900s, and were permitted only as “guest listeners” who could not earn degrees. Plehn had to leave the country to study in Zurich, where she became the first woman to receive a doctorate from ETH Zurich. In 1913 she was named Königlicher Professor, the first woman in Bavaria to receive the title.

As Bock notes:

“This represents a historic milestone for women in higher education and natural sciences in Germany – despite no linked teaching certificate to the appointment. Her extensive field research and diagnostic expertise earned her widespread recognition as one of Europe’s top authorities in aquatic biology.”

Marianne Plehn at her desk, photographed by Philipp Kester. Philipp Kester, Marianne Plehn – Aufnahme am Arbeitstisch, 17 cm × 12 cm, Münchner Stadtmuseum, Sammlung Fotografie, Archiv Kester https://sammlungonline.muenchner-stadtmuseum.de/objekt/marianne-plehn-aufnahme-am-arbeitstisch-10113833.

Why it matters for future research

For Bock, the find carries several hopes. The first is a change in attitude towards neglected collections:

“I made the experience first-hand that the decision of getting rid of something is made quite fast, without having a closer look or starting to sleuth the provenance of certain objects, as this is a very time-consuming and often dead-end job, but sometimes there are astonishing reveals!”

The second is about storytelling. “I want to tell stories, to scholars, students and visitors,” he says. Knowing who collected a specimen, and how, makes an object attractive in a way that a label never could, because “there is more to tell than just a greyish marine flatworm”.

The third is scientific. The relationships of the family Plehniidae within the polyclads remain unclear, and no earlier phylogenetic study has included P. arctica. Bock hopes the specimen might one day yield DNA sequences, making it useful for phylogenetic and systematic research.

A call for more curators

Finally, Bock sees his article as a plea for investment in people as well as in specimens: small museums, he argues, need more curator positions, not only for vertebrates but for other groups too.

“There is so much to discover that is already there, but we lack manpower.”

Asked what he finds most interesting about the work, Bock says it is the discovery itself and its provenance, “as this enriches our collection”. Others, he suggests, may be drawn to the news that a type specimen is available again, or to Plehn’s career path. Whichever it is, a grey flatworm in a small jar has proved to be a window onto a pioneering scientist and a reminder of how much may still be waiting on the shelves.

Original source:

Bock BL (2026) Rediscovery of a type specimen of Plehnia arctica (Plehn, 1896) (Polycladida, Plehniidae) described by Marianne Plehn, a pioneering woman in German zoology. Natural History Collections and Museomics 3: e200580. https://doi.org/10.3897/nhcm.3.200580

Natural History Collections and Museomics: Facebook and Bluesky

Iris patterns offer a non-invasive way to recognise individual Amazonian treefrogs

Researchers in French Guiana demonstrate that the golden eyes of a Neotropical treefrog can replace invasive marking techniques.

Identifying individual animals in the wild has long meant tagging, branding or clipping. For amphibians, the standard approach has often been toe-clipping, a procedure that can affect survival, physiology and behaviour.

A new study suggests that, for at least one species of treefrog, nature has already provided a more humane solution: the eyes.

Osteocephalus oophagus in situ. Photographed in French Guiana (4°02’N, 52°41’W; ) between March and May 2021. Credit: Mélissa Peignier et al., 2026.

Published in the open-access journal Herpetozoa, the research was led by Dr Mélissa Peignier and colleagues at the Division of Behavioural Ecology at the University of Bern, with contributors from the Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz.

The team examined Osteocephalus oophagus, an Amazonian treefrog whose golden irises are crossed by fine black radial lines, forming a pattern reminiscent of a human fingerprint.

Fieldwork took place over three rainy seasons, from 2021 to 2023, on a river island of roughly five hectares in the Nouragues Nature Reserve in French Guiana. Across 392 captures, the researchers identified 103 individual frogs.

  • Osteocephalus oophagus in situ. Photographed in French Guiana (4°02’N, 52°41’W; ) between March and May 2021. Credit: Mélissa Peignier et al., 2026.

On later encounters, they photographed each animal’s eyes without touching it and compared the images with a reference library held on a rugged tablet. Frogs recognised in this way were simply left undisturbed. The identifications were independently verified using Wild-ID, a software package for photographic mark-recapture analysis.

The iris patterns proved highly distinctive. Within a single season, between 56% and 80% of frogs were recaptured and reliably re-identified, showing that the patterns are stable enough for short-term monitoring. Photographs could even be taken of frogs in amplexus, the mating embrace, without disrupting them.

Examples of individual identification upon capture and recapture based on iris patterns in three male Osteocephalus oophagus photographed in French Guiana (4°02’N, 52°41’W; Bongers et al. 2001) between March and May 2021 and 2022. Credit: Mélissa Peignier et al., 2026.

The project began with simple admiration.

“At the time, I was doing my PhD, studying Allobates femoralis in the field in French Guiana. My first reaction was simply something along the lines of, ‘Wow, what beautiful eyes!’ That initial curiosity gradually turned into a genuine interest in the species, and I realised how little we actually know about them.”

Dr Peignier
Example of the diversity of iris patterns from eight Osteocephalus oophagus individuals photographed in French Guiana (4°02’N, 52°41’W; Bongers et al. 2001) between March and May 2021, 2022, and 2023. Credit: Mélissa Peignier et al., 2026.

The team’s motivation was also ethical.

“Other studies have used toe-clipping, which involves removing some of the digits. Personally, I was uncomfortable with this approach, especially given that these are arboreal frogs that rely on their limbs to climb trees.”

Dr Peignier

Dr Peignier hopes the method will spread.

“In a world where biodiversity is declining at an alarming rate, it is essential that we minimise our impact on the animals we study.

If we can reliably identify individuals using naturally occurring features, we may be able to reduce the need for more invasive marking techniques while still collecting the data needed to answer important scientific questions.”

Osteocephalus oophagus in situ. Photographed in French Guiana (4°02’N, 52°41’W; ) between March and May 2021. Credit: Mélissa Peignier et al., 2026.

The authors stress that suitability will vary between species, and that the approach should be tested case by case before wider adoption. Even so, they see considerable promise for amphibians with complex irises.

Fieldwork, Dr Peignier adds, had its own rewards.

“Honestly, the frogs themselves are incredibly beautiful and surprisingly chill, which makes working with them a real pleasure.”

Original source:

Bégué L, Petel F, Premel V, Raboisson G, Ringler E, Ringler M, Toszeghi M, Vacher V, Peignier M (2026) Iris pattern recognition as a non-invasive method for individual identification in Osteocephalus oophagus (Hylidae). Herpetozoa 39: 381-387. https://doi.org/10.3897/herpetozoa.39.e208000

Genomic study uncovers a new lace bug species on Japan’s remote Ogasawara Islands

Analysing 52 specimens with a genetic method known as MIG-seq, the team found that an insect previously regarded as a single species, Omoplax desecta, in fact comprised two.

Researchers have used genome-wide DNA data to identify a new insect species on the Ogasawara Islands, a remote Japanese archipelago roughly 900 to 1,000 kilometres south of Tokyo. The findings suggest that evolution among island insects is more intricate than appearances imply. The study is published in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

The Ogasawara Islands are a UNESCO World Natural Heritage site, celebrated for their endemic land snails and plants. Their insects, of which some 440 endemic species are known, have received far less evolutionary attention.

Jun Souma, of Hirosaki University’s Shirakami Research Center for Environmental Sciences, and Naoyuki Nakahama, of the Graduate School of Agriculture at Osaka Metropolitan University, examined Omoplax, a genus of lace bugs found nowhere else and thought to have diversified rapidly across the islands.

Analysing 52 specimens with a genetic method known as MIG-seq, the team found that an insect previously regarded as a single species, Omoplax desecta, in fact comprised two. Populations on the Chichijima and Hahajima island groups were genetically distinct, and subtle differences in male genitalia confirmed the split. The Hahajima population is now described as Omoplax sandoru, named after the local name of its host plant.

Omoplax desecta (nymph). Image credit: Jun Souma.
Omoplax desecta (adult). Image credit: Jun Souma.

Souma was first drawn to Omoplax desecta by its unusual diet:

“The reason I took a particular interest in Omoplax desecta is that it feeds on both the native plant Rhaphiolepis indica var. tashiroi and the introduced plant Calophyllum inophyllum in the Chichijima island group.

This is quite unusual for lace bugs, which typically exhibit high host specificity. I was also intrigued by the fact that it is distributed across multiple island groups, which is different from other Omoplax species.”

The Hahajima population posed its own puzzle:

“I had wondered why it fed exclusively on Rhaphiolepis indica var. tashiroi and why there were no individuals with dark brown to black pronotum, which are sometimes seen in the Chichijima island group.

After conducting population genetic and phylogenetic analyses, I began to suspect that this population might be a distinct species. Upon closely observing their morphological characteristics, I was certain of this.”

Jun Souma, conducting observation on Calophyllum inophyllum where Omoplax desecta feeds. Image credit: Jun Souma.

The evolutionary tree also overturned expectations:

“The most surprising finding of my research was that species feeding on the same plant and appearing very similar are not necessarily sister groups.

Adaptive radiation among insects on oceanic islands may be more complex than comparisons of morphological characteristics and life histories would suggest at first glance.”

The results point to both geographic isolation and shifts between host plants as drivers of speciation.

Rhaphiolepis indica var. tashiroi. Image credit: Jun Souma.

Of particular interest is the insect’s adoption of Calophyllum inophyllum, a tree introduced by people. The data indicate that this host shift occurred once, and recently.

“I also find it interesting that the introduction of Calophyllum inophyllum by humans may have led to a budding of future speciation in Omoplax desecta.”

Jun Souma
Calophyllum inophyllum. Image credit: Jun Souma.

The authors note that DNA could not be obtained from two rare species, leaving parts of the story unresolved. Further sampling will be needed to trace how these insects reached the islands and diversified.

Original source:

Souma J, Nakahama N (2026) Genome-wide SNP data reveal phylogenetic relationships and further new species of lace bugs (Hemiptera, Heteroptera, Tingidae) endemic to the Japanese oceanic islands (the Ogasawara Islands), providing insight into their speciation. ZooKeys 1294: 175-203. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1294.205145

For more articles on zoology, visit the ZooKeys website and follow the journal on BlueSky and Facebook.

Imperial Woodpecker returns to life as a detailed digital specimen

An open-access 3D model of the world’s largest woodpecker brings an extinct Mexican bird into the public eye.

Researchers have created a detailed, animated 3D model of the Imperial Woodpecker (Campephilus imperialis), a spectacular bird that has not been confirmed in the wild since 1956. The model, built from a museum specimen and the only known film footage of the living bird, is freely available to scientists, educators and the public.

The study, led by Joshua Medina at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, is published in the open-access journal Natural History Collections and Museomics (NHCM). The research team also includes colleagues from the Moore Laboratory of Zoology at Occidental College in Los Angeles and Oregon State University.

3D model of an Imperial Woodpecker mid-flight with wings extended. The left wing (A) has been labelled and colour-coded according to feather type present in the model. The right wing (B) exposes the underlying 3D armature that drives the motion and articulation of the wing. Image credit: Joshua Medina et al., 2026.

The Imperial Woodpecker was the largest woodpecker on record, reaching more than 60 centimetres in length. It lived in the old-growth pine forests of Mexico’s Sierra Madre Occidental and is presumed extinct following widespread logging of its habitat. Around 100 preserved specimens exist in museums worldwide, and the only moving images of the species are a few seconds of grainy film shot in 1956.

“The Imperial Woodpecker hasn’t been seen in the wild for nearly 70 years. Creating a digital specimen let us re-capture a glimpse of the bird’s real likeness and behaviour in a way that’s easy to access and share.”

The Research Team

From museum skin to moving bird

The reconstruction began with a female specimen held at the Moore Laboratory of Zoology, which houses the world’s largest collection of Mexican birds. The team photographed the specimen 288 times from every angle and used photogrammetry, a technique that turns overlapping photographs into a 3D surface, to capture its shape with sub-millimetre accuracy. Measurements of the head, bill, body, wings and tail were taken throughout to keep the digital bird true to the original.

3D model of an Imperial Woodpecker ascending a tree. The model is shown fully rendered with colour derived from 3D specimen scans and photographs (A), with the underlying mesh exposed in the image to the right (B). Below, still frames of a live female Imperial Woodpecker in the Sierra Madre Occidental, Mexico show the bird climbing (C) and mid-flight (D). Video frames reproduced from Lammertink et al. (2011, fig. 1). Image credit: Joshua Medina et al., 2026.

Feathers proved the greatest challenge. Because it is difficult to see individual feathers on a specimen, the team modelled individual feather shapes on those of the Pileated Woodpecker, the largest living woodpecker in North America, then resized and adjusted them to match the known proportions of the Imperial Woodpecker. Wing patterning was drawn from scientific illustrations and checked against the available visual record.

Wing-tip displacement over the course of the animation sequence, tracked from the tip of the terminal phalanx. Graphs show displacement in the mediolateral (x) axis, the dorsoventral (y) axis and the anteroposterior (z) axis, each measured in metres, plotted against animation frame number. Peaks and troughs in each axis correspond to discrete wingbeat cycles, with intervening plateaus reflecting periods of soaring where wing-tip movement is minimal. Image credit: Joshua Medina et al., 2026.

Using the open-source software Blender, the researchers then built a digital skeleton to drive the model’s movement. Ten primary, ten secondary and twelve tail feathers were each individually modelled and rigged, so that they can spread, bend and fold independently. To the team’s knowledge, this makes the model one of the first open, specimen-based bird reconstructions to combine a photogrammetric body with individually animated feathers.

Two animations bring the model to life: a looping flight sequence and a short clip of the bird climbing a tree trunk and drumming against the bark. Both are grounded in the 1956 film footage, supplemented by behavioural video of the Pileated Woodpecker and published data on woodpecker wingbeat timing.

Four phases of the wingbeat cycle of C. imperialis, shown in dorsal view (A) and lateral view (B). Beginning with the wings fully extended at the top of the upstroke (1), the wingtips sweep downward through the downstroke to their lowermost point (2), before the wings fold and draw back towards the body (3) and finally extend again as they rise to complete the upstroke (4). Image credit: Joshua Medina et al., 2026.

A tool for science and for public awareness

Beyond its visual appeal, the model is designed as a reproducible scientific resource. Researchers can use it to estimate body volume and surface area, compare shape with living relatives, or run simulations of flight and feather movement. The authors note it could also inform the design of bird-inspired flying robots.

The team hopes the work will also reach audiences far beyond the laboratory:

“The Imperial Woodpecker might be the last bird species to have gone extinct in continental North America, but arguably 99.9% of people have never heard of it.

If a digital specimen can increase public awareness of extinct species by even a fraction of a percent, that’s millions of people who have an idea for what extinction can erase from the planet.”

Russell Campbell measuring the Imperial Woodpecker specimen. Image credit: Joshua Medina.

The study also highlights the cultural dimension of the species. The Imperial Woodpecker features in the traditions of Indigenous communities of the Sierra Madre Occidental, yet few, if any, museum specimens are held in Mexico. The authors suggest that freely shared digital models may help to offset these geographic and institutional barriers, while acknowledging that whether such work can contribute to the repatriation of biological and cultural heritage remains an open question.

Imperial Woodpecker 3D Model.

The researchers are candid about the model’s limits. It is based on a single female specimen, and aspects such as soft tissue and flight kinematics rely on informed estimation from living relatives. They hope future work will digitise further specimens to capture variation between sexes and individuals.

“The fact that this was created by such a small team will hopefully be a proof of concept that results in more museum specimens being brought to life and shared with the larger scientific community.”

The model, skeleton and animations are available to view and download through Sketchfab.

Original source

Medina J, Campbell R, Martin J, McCormack JE, Irschick DJ (2026) A digital specimen of the extinct Imperial Woodpecker: integrating museum scans, historical film and animated feather articulation. Natural History Collections and Museomics 3: e204314. https://doi.org/10.3897/nhcm.3.204314

Natural History Collections and Museomics: Facebook and Bluesky

New Journal of Scientific and Technological Innovations launches on ARPHA

The journal is an international, multidisciplinary academic journal supervised by Ho Chi Minh City University of Industry and Trade (HUIT).

Pensoft Publishers is pleased to announce the publication of the first issue of the Journal of Scientific and Technological Innovations (STI), an international journal for cutting-edge research across the scientific and technological spectrum. 

The journal notably adopts Pensoft’s ARPHA platform, an innovative end-to-end full-featured publishing solution that streamlines the entire publication workflow – from initial manuscript submission to indexing, distribution, hosting and archiving through one coordinated platform. To date, ARPHA provides “a home” to about 100 open-access journals across scientific fields.

Table of Contents

About the journal

The Journal of Scientific and Technological Innovations is an international, multidisciplinary academic journal supervised by Ho Chi Minh City University of Industry and Trade (HUIT). The journal publishes original, peer-reviewed research contributions.

Its editorial purview encompasses a broad range of scientific and technological domains:

  • Food Science – biotechnology, traceability, safety and quality assurance, chemistry and toxicology, packaging, nanotechnology, sensory evaluation, sustainability, health and nutrition, and product innovation
  • Environmental Science – catalysis and energy conversion, carbon capture and utilisation, hydrogen and biomass technologies, agricultural and environmental biotechnology, bioremediation and wastewater treatment, sustainable chemistry, and computational approaches
  • Chemical Engineering – green and sustainable chemistry, computational methods, analytical and synthetic chemistry, pharmaceutical chemistry, catalytic technologies, and process development
  • Materials Science – nanomaterials, biomaterials, ceramics and composites, electronic and optical materials, polymers, surface coatings, eco-materials, and semiconductors

Editorial board

The journal is led by an international team of scholars:

Editor-in-Chief: Thi Hong Anh Le, Ho Chi Minh City University of Industry and Trade, Vietnam

Deputy Editors-in-Chief: Tuyen Truong, RMIT University, Australia; Thanh-Binh Nguyen, National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology, Taiwan

Featured articles

The first issue of STI presents six contributions spanning food science, materials science, and applied food technology:

A cost-benefit analysis of small-holder floating-house fish farming in Chau Doc City, Vietnamese Mekong Delta 

A study of 35 Mekong Delta fish farmers reveals significant disparities in farm profitability across different river reaches, with operations facing demographic vulnerabilities and heavy reliance on unpaid labour. 

Read more: Farzana H, Tran DD, Nguyen TD, Park E (2026) A cost-benefit analysis of small-holder floating-house fish farming in Chau Doc City, Vietnamese Mekong Delta. Journal of Scientific and Technological Innovations 1: e209236. https://doi.org/10.3897/sti.e209236

Ultrasound-assisted pullulanase modification increases resistant starch content and alters the structure–function properties of water caltrop starch 

A combined ultrasound and enzymatic treatment increased resistant starch content in water caltrop starch from 21.72% to 28.15%, whilst enhancing its water and oil absorption capacities. The approach offers potential for developing resistant starch-enriched functional food ingredients.

Read more: Phan VM, Ngo TMP, Do TTN, Luyen TTH, Duong TT, Tran NM, Tran CH (2026) Ultrasound-assisted pullulanase modification increases resistant starch content and alters the structure–function properties of water caltrop starch. Journal of Scientific and Technological Innovations 1: e209539. https://doi.org/10.3897/sti.e209539 

Effects of Melatonin/β-cyclodextrin Treatment on Physicochemical and Bioactive Attributes of Cherry Tomatoes during Storage

Melatonin complexed with β-cyclodextrin reduced cherry tomato weight loss by up to 56% during refrigerated storage and proved more effective than free melatonin in preserving colour, acidity, and polyphenol content. The complex formation provides a viable strategy for extending shelf-life in harvested produce.

Read more: Tran THC, Dong TT, Nguyen PH,Le NH,Kuo C-H (2026) Effects of Melatonin/β-cyclodextrin Treatment on Physicochemical and Bioactive Attributes of Cherry Tomatoes during Storage. Journal of Scientific and Technological Innovations 1: e212043. https://doi.org/10.3897/sti.e212043

Design, Functionalities, and Emerging Applications of Ti3C2Tx MXene-Based Composites: A Review 

This review synthesises current knowledge on titanium carbide-based MXenes, two-dimensional materials with exceptional conductivity and mechanical properties. MXene-based composites demonstrate applications in gas sensing, photocatalytic carbon dioxide reduction, and energy storage devices.

Read more: Ta QTH, Pham NN, Tran QN, Lu TMT, Noh JS (2026) Design, Functionalities, and Emerging Applications of Ti3C2Tx MXene-Based Composites: A Review. Journal of Scientific and Technological Innovations 1: e205045. Design, Functionalities, and Emerging Applications of Ti3C2Tx MXene-Based Composites: A Review

Chemical Composition, Bioactivities, and Cosmetic Applications of Coconut Oil and Its Derivatives

Recent evidence demonstrates that coconut oil, when appropriately applied, offers dermatological benefits, with antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant properties. The research clarifies interactions between coconut oil and skin microflora and explains previous inconsistencies in published findings.

Read more: Dat NM, Phong DT, Long HB, Dat NT, Thy LTM (2026) Chemical Composition, Bioactivities, and Cosmetic Applications of Coconut Oil and Its Derivatives. Journal of Scientific and Technological Innovations 1: e205088. https://doi.org/10.3897/sti.e205088 

Retention of bilberry anthocyanins in wood hemicelluloses coated microcapsules under the impact of humidity and packaging conditions 

Storage at 8% relative humidity limited bilberry anthocyanin degradation to 17-22% over 24 weeks, with wood hemicelluloses providing comparable protection to conventional gum Arabic. The findings establish moisture control as important for developing shelf-stable natural functional powders with sustainable coating materials.

Read more: Halahlah A, Piironen V, Mikkonen KS, Ho TM (2026) Retention of bilberry anthocyanins in wood hemicelluloses coated microcapsules under the impact of humidity and packaging conditions. Journal of Scientific and Technological Innovations 1: e207689. https://doi.org/10.3897/sti.e207689

A platform for scientific advancement

The diversity of contributions in this first issue reflects STI’s multidisciplinary scope. Researchers interested in submitting manuscripts are invited to consult the journal’s guidelines and submission portal.

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Access the full first issue here.