Author: Pensoft Editorial Team

The new species Echinophyllia tarae is described from the remote and poorly studied Gambier Islands, French Polynesia. Although the new species is common in the lagoon of Gambier Islands, its occurrence elsewhere is unknown. Echinophyllia tarae lives in protected reef habitats and was observed between 5 and 20 m depth. It is a zooxanthellate species which commonly grows on dead coral fragments, which are also covered by crustose coralline algae and fleshy macroalgae.

This species can grow on well illuminated surfaces but also encrusts shaded underhangs and contributes to the formation of coral reefs in the Gambier. It is characterized by large polyps and bright often mottled colourations and it is very plastic in morphology like most hard corals. Patterns of partial death and recovery of the species were often observed and could be due to competition with other benthic invertebrates like the soft-bodied corallimorpharians or zoanthids which can co-occur with this species.

Stony corals are currently under threat by the effects of global warming, ocean acidification and anthropogenic changes of reef structures. Although corals represent a relatively well studied group of charismatic marine invertebrates, much has still to be understood of their biology, evolution, diversity, and biogeography. The discovery of this new species in French Polynesia confirms that our knowledge of hard coral diversity is still incomplete and that the exploration efforts of recent scientific expeditions like Tara Oceans can lead to new insights in a remote and previously poorly studied locations.

This species is named after the Tara vessel which allowed the exploration of coral reefs in Gambier. Moreover, the name “tara” in the Polynesian language may refer to a spiny, pointed object, which applies well to the new species typically featuring pointed skeletal structures. In the same language, Tara is also the name of a sea goddess.

Original Source:

Benzoni F (2013) Echinophyllia tarae sp. n. (Cnidaria, Anthozoa, Scleractinia), a new reef coral species from the Gambier Islands, French Polynesia. ZooKeys 318: 59, doi:10.3897/zookeys.318.5351

Environmental consultants, research ecologists, nature conservation agencies, city managers, translators, and many others, all need to put names to plants at one time or another. The sources used often are not scientifically up-to-date, making it difficult to figure out the accepted name or proper vernacular to use in a vast country like Canada. The VASCAN database simplifies this task for all users.

The database content was developed by a team of botanists led by Dr. Luc Brouillet, a specialist of the Canadian flora, curator of the Marie-Victorin Herbarium, and a researcher at the Université de Montréal Biodiversity Centre and Institut de recherche en biologie végétale, Canada. Data are maintained and improved thanks to input from the whole botanical community. The software was developed under the leadership of Peter Desmet, formerly Biodiversity Informatics Manager of Canadensys, a Canada-wide biodiversity information network based at the Biodiversity Centre, and currently LifeWatch team coordinator at the Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO), Belgium.

The VASCAN database comprises names for 5,124 vascular plants in Canada, Saint Pierre and Miquelon (France) and Greenland, roughly half of the North American continent, a zone that includes temperate and boreal forests, prairies, and tundra. The plant groups that make up vascular plants are lycopods, ferns and their relatives, conifers and flowering plants.

The database contains accepted scientific names as well as synonyms, and Canadian vernacular names in English and French (recommended or alternate regional usages). For each plant, the distribution within Canada at the provincial or territorial level is provided both in map and text form. All information is documented with a source.

Users may find information on the plants they are interested in by a simple search, using either a scientific or a vernacular name; all names can be searched. Searches are fast and the results provide all the information on the plant present in VASCAN. Users may also use the checklist builder to create their own, customized lists of plants. They can also download the whole database as a Darwin Core Archive.

Data are being continuously updated with the help of the whole community of Canadian botanists and amateur scientists. All VASCAN data have been released to the public domain and are fully accessible without restriction (under the Creative Common Zero waiver. Canadensys, a Canadian network for biodiversity information, is the publisher of VASCAN.

Original source:

Desmet P, Brouillet L (2013) Database of Vascular Plants of Canada (VASCAN): a community contributed taxonomic checklist of all vascular plants of Canada, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, and Greenland. PhytoKeys 25: 55-67. doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.25.3100 Resource ID: GBIF key: http://gbrds.gbif.org/browse/agent?uuid=3f8a1297-3259-4700-91fc-acc4170b27ce

 

Additional Information:

Brouillet L, Desmet P, Coursol F, Meades SJ, Favreau M, Anions M, Bélisle P, Gendreau C, Shorthouse D and contributors* (2010+). Database of Vascular Plants of Canada (VASCAN). 27189 records. Online at http://data.canadensys.net/vascan, http://dx.doi.org/10.5886/Y7SMZY5P, and http://data.gbif.org/datasets/resource/13558, released on 2010-12-10, version 24 (last updated on 2013-07-22). GBIF key: 3f8a1297-3259-4700-91fc-acc4170b27ce. Data paper ID: doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.25.3100

The new weevil genus was discovered during a routine study of some weevil specimens collected by the Swedish botanist and entomologist Carl Peter Thunberg, a disciple of Carl Linnaeus, during his trips in the then Cape Colony of the Dutch East India Company (now Cape Town, South Africa). The study revealed one tiny specimen measuring barely 1.8mm belonging to an hitherto unknown genus. This specimen was collected between 16 April 1772 and 2 March 1775 or when Thunberg returned from Batavia (now Jakarta, Indonesia) in 1778.

Dr. Miguel A. Alonso-Zarazaga, a weevil specialist at the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (CSIC), Madrid, Spain wanted to do a modern study of the species described by Thunberg with the specimens he collected, and particularly this one, which has not been found again since its discovery and description in 1813, after Thunberg’s return to Sweden. His results have been published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

The description of the new genus Thunbergapion has allowed other colleagues to identify just a few specimens in other collections that could also belong in the same genus, all from South Africa. ”Now the interest lies in finding populations of these species in the field that can be studied to discover their biology and host plants.”, said Dr. Alonso-Zarazaga, ” Their close relatives living in the Mediterranean region use species of Saint John’s wort as host plants for adults and larvae. These are also present in South Africa, but other plants cannot be ruled out.”

The species of this recently discovered genus could be relict, a term meaning that their populations now cover a small geographic area (in this case in South Africa) but in the past were more widely distributed. It is interesting to see the relationship with Mediterranean species, a link already established for some other groups of animals. But in South Africa the natural vegetation has been strongly altered by man, introducing new plants or modifying large extensions of land for agricultural use, not to mention the urban growth.

”This discovery comes to us from the past.”, said Dr. Alonso-Zarazaga, “Thanks to the good management of old collections like that of Thunberg in Uppsala, we can have a glimpse into the fauna that existed in South Africa in the end of the 18th century and that, perhaps in some cases, could have disappeared. That is why it is important to keep Natural History museums, collecting and keeping samples of the past and present faunas for the future generations. More than 200-year-old, this discovery has enriched the South African biodiversity because the Museum of Evolution of the Uppsala University has played the role in which society cast it.”

Original source:

Alonso-Zarazaga MA (2013) Types of species of Apionidae (Coleoptera) described by Carl Peter Thunberg (1743-1848) with description of a new genus. ZooKeys 317: 89-101. doi:10.3897/zookeys.317.5477

Inspired by eLife, Pensoft now deposits article XMLs on GitHub

A core principle at Pensoft Publishers is openness – all of our journals are Open Access and available in multiple formats (both human-readable, e.g. PDF and semantically enhanced HTML, and machine-readable, such as XML) to simplify re-use of information and advance scientific research.

In accordance with this philosophy and starting Mon, 15/07/2013, the XML of all articles in ZooKeys, PhytoKeys and MycoKeys are now available on GitHub for all to see, comment, suggest changes and more.

At Pensoft, a guiding principle is technological excellence – we use the best tools available (and build new ones when existing ones are lacking) to provide a service that is advanced, yet easy and accessible. GitHub can be described as a social platform and network used mostly by software developers for coding, discussing, changing, and keeping track of all that. A major benefit of re-use is that it acts as an additional check for quality. As programmers say “given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow”.

“We have been impressed by the innovative approach of the eLife journal to use GitHub as a repository for their article XMLs and quickly followed it by advice of Prof. Roderic Page from the University of Glasgow. In a blog post, he pointed out how small errors in the markup of citations could prevent linking those citations to their online versions. Certainly the way to go to turn academic publishing into a more socially based enterprise!” said Prof. Lyubomir Penev, managing director of Pensoft.

Posting of the article XMLs on GitHub would allow these to be corrected and corrections/comments to be submitted through the repository feedback functionality, the so called “pull requests”. Moreover, all changes to the original version can be tracked in public. A good use case didn’t wait for long. Prof. Page wrote a script that identifies literature references lacking DOIs, then automatically checks CrossRef and yields back the missing DOIs. It will be straightforward to insert the missing DOIs into the article XMLs and to expose the version history.

Researchers described a new species of Noctuidae moth from Iran which is the fifth described species of the genus Anagnorisma. The new species A. chamrani has its name in honour of Dr. Mostafa Chamran (1932–1981), an Iranian scientist and defence minister. The study was published in the open access journal Zookeys.

During an expedition at high altitude of above 2500 m of north-eastern Iran on a cold night in late summer 2012, a couple of undescribed specimens of Anagnorisma moths were collected. The specimens had been attracted to an ultraviolet light trap on the Binaloud Mountain near Mashhad city, the capital of the Khorasan-e-Razavi province of Iran. They have a wingspan of 34-35 mm. The new species was collected in a narrow river valley dominated by mountain sainfoin (Onobrychis cornuta), wild almond (Prunus (Amygdalus) scoparia), and downy brome (Bromus tectorum).

A. chamrani is the sister species of A. eucratides, which is only known from eastern Afghanistan at altitudes of 2050 to 2450 m of the Hindu Kush Mountains. A. eucratides is the most similar species to chamrani in the wing pattern, external and genitalia characteristics and it is also the closest geographically.

Owlet moths (family Noctuidae) are a large worldwide group of more than 20,000 species of nocturnal lepidopterans, attracted to lights and mostly have dull protective coloration, although some exceptions occur. Most adults feed on fruits, sap, nectar, or other sweet fluids. The larvae vary considerably in size, and range from dull to colourful and from smooth to hairy. Many species feed on foliage and seeds, whereas others bore through stems and fruits. Larvae of some species are known as cutworms and live in the soil near the soil surface, and they bite off young plants just above ground level at night.

Original source:

Gyulai P, Rabieh MM, Seraj AA, Ronkay L, Esfandiari M (2013) Anagnorisma chamrani sp. n. (Lepidoptera, Noctuidae) from Iran. ZooKeys 317: 17–25. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.317.551

After nearly 25 years of searching, three scientists have finally found Waldo. No, not the loveable bespectacled character in children’s picture books, but rather an unusual clam discovered off the coast of California and British Columbia.

Paul Valentich-Scott from the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, and Diarmaid Ó Foighil from the University of Michigan, Museum of Zoology first began discussing this unusual clam back in 1989. Valentich-Scott discovered his strange specimens off the coast of Santa Barbara and Morro Bay, California, while Ó Foighil uncovered his while trawling for invertebrates off Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

At a scientific conference Valentich-Scott and Ó Foighil were chatting about clams during a break in the proceedings. As they were discussing new discoveries, the light went off. They had discovered the same new species, at the same time, but over 1,000 miles apart.

Neither scientist could identify the animal, and both were amazed by its thin, translucent shell and long willowy tentacles. Ó Foighil was able to collect and observe living specimens of the new species. ”We were looking closely at sea urchins and noticed something crawling on the fine spines covering the urchin body.”, declared Ó Foighil, ”We were amazed to see that there were minute clams crawling all over the sea urchin.”

Thus two decades of research began, trying to understand and formally describe this new animal. ”We never anticipated this would be such a long project.”, Valentich-Scott exclaimed, ”But every time we started in one direction we hit a wall and needed to begin again.”

Rescue finally came from doctoral student Jingchun Li at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Li is a specialist in clam DNA. She was able to amplify the DNA of the new species and compare it to other similar species. ”We were pleased to see the new species was very distinct genetically.”, said Li, ” However we were surprised to find that its closest relative was from the South Atlantic Ocean off Argentina.” Valentich-Scott and Ó Foighil invited Li to collaborate on the final publication.

Valentich-Scott stated, ”This is a very peculiar animal, they only seems to live on the spines of one type of sea urchin in a commensal relationship. We found it ironic that the new species was in the genus Waldo and just couldn’t help but ask: “Where’s Waldo?”

Original source:

Where’s Waldo? A new commensal species, Waldo arthuri (Mollusca, Bivalvia, Galeommatidae), from the Northeastern Pacific Ocean. ZooKeys 316: 67–80, doi: 10.3897/zookeys.316.4256

 

Researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks (Derek Sikes and Jill Stockbridge) discovered a strange new insect on Prince of Wales Island, Alaska. It belongs to an enigmatic group that might help scientists understand the evolutionary origin of the Fleas. The new species belongs to the insect order Mecoptera which includes the scorpionflies, hangingflies, and snow scorpionflies. The description has been published recently in the open access journal ZooKeys.

“We process thousands of Alaskan insects specimens into our collections at the University of Alaska Museum every year so it’s rare that we see something that throws us for a loop. I called Derek, the Curator of Insects for the museum, into the lab and asked him what kind of insect this was and he didn’t even know the order!”, said co-author Jill Stockbridge.

With a digital photo in hand they posted the image on Facebook so their entomologist friends could offer their opinions. It’s such a strange insect that, not surprisingly, most suggestions were wrong. One entomologist, Michael Ivie, of Montana State University, recognized it as the genus Caurinus of which only one species, from Washington and Oregon, was previously known.

“In addition to being the second known species of such an usual group of insects, we were excited to learn from fossil evidence that these two species belong to a group that probably dates back over 145 million years, to the Jurassic!” said the lead author Derek Sikes.

These tiny (2 mm) flea-like animals feed on a leafy liverwort that grows in coastal forests. A video in which Loren Russell, the author of the first species and who joined the authors during a May 2013 expedition in Alaska, shows how to collect this new species is online at: https://vimeo.com/68819818 and a video showing this new species hopping is online at: https://vimeo.com/68819819 .

###

Original Source:

Sikes DS, Stockbridge J (2013) Description of Caurinus tlagu, new species, from Prince of Wales Island, Alaska (Mecoptera, Boreidae, Caurininae). ZooKeys 316: 35. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.316.5400

 

Additional Information:

Funding for this research was provided by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

A new species of rare and beautiful plant has been described from the biodiversity rich Peninsular Malaysia. Ridleyandra chuana is endemic to the region and only known from two small montane forest populations. The conservation status of this recently described delicate flower is assessed as Endangered due to its restricted distribution. The new species was described and illustrated in the open access journal PhytoKeys.

Ridleyandra chuana is a perennial herb with a woody usually unbranched stem crowned by an asymmetrical rosette of dark green leaves covered in fine hairs. The beautiful and delicate cone-like flowers are white with dark maroon purple stripes. They rarely appear in more than two in one go usually flowering in succession. Ridleyandra chuana grows on moss-covered granite rock embedded in soil or on low moss-covered granite boulders, in extremely damp, deeply shaded conditions on steep slopes in valleys.

Although the species is only formally described now, it was in fact first encountered as early as 1932 at Fraser’s Hill, Pahang. However, it was only in 1999 when another population was discovered by L.S.L. Chua on Gunung Ulu Kali, Pahang, that sufficient material was available for its description. Since then, both these localities have been revisited and the Gunung Ulu Kali population is now the focus of conservation.

The new species is named in honour of Dr. Lillian Swee Lian Chua, botanist and conservationist, who first discovered this species on Gunung Ulu Kali while making an ecological inventory of the summit flora. Under the IUCN criteria, this species is assessed as Endangered because it is known from two localities, one of which is threatened, and only 130 known individuals.

“The population at Fraser’s Hill falls within a Totally Protected Area and consists of about 30 plants that grow in an undisturbed site away from tourist trails and is too remote to be affected by development. The other population consists of less than 100 plants at Gunung Ulu Kali, which is on private land in a hill resort that is severely threatened by road widening and associated landslips, by changes in microclimate due to edge effect as the forest becomes more and more fragmented and that is in danger of encroachment from future development. The chances of this latter population surviving is very slim. On the other hand, the rediscovery of the Fraser’s Hill population after a hundred years illustrates the resilience of species to survive if the habitat remains undisturbed.”, explains Dr. Ruth Kiew, the author of this study.

Original Source:

Kiew E (2013) Ridleyandra chuana (Gesneriaceae), a new species from Peninsular Malaysia. PhytoKeys 25: 15. doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.25.5178

Scientists discovered a tiny new species of catfish in the waters of Rio Rio Paraíba do Sul basin, Brazil. The new species Pareiorhina hyptiorhachis belongs to a genus of armored catfishes native to South America where and found only in Brazil. These peculiar fish get their name from their strange elongated mouth barbels that remind of cat’s whiskers. The new species is distinguished from others species of the genus by the presence of a conspicuous ridge on the trunk posterior to the dorsal fin (postdorsal ridge). The description of the diminutive new species was published in the open access journal Zookeys.

Pareiorhina hyptiorhachis is only about 3-3.5 cm in length, making one of the smallest representatives of the catfish order. Although the new species is only the size of a decorative fish, there are even smaller representatives in the group. Some of the smallest species of Aspredinidae and Trichomycteridae for example reach sexual maturity at only 1 cm in total.

On the other side of the scale is the wels catfish whose representatives can reach more than 2.5 metres (8.2 ft) in length and sometimes exceeded 100 kilograms (220 lb). This fish has been also recorded to feed on frogs, rats, mice and even some aquatic birds. Many of the large catfish species are farmed or fished for food thus being of significant scientific importance. Small representatives, on the other hand, are often used as aquarium decorative fish.

Original Source:

Silva GSC, Roxo FF, Oliveira C (2013) Pareiorhina hyptiorhachis, a new catfish species from Rio Paraíba do Sul basin, southeastern Brazil (Siluriformes, Loricariidae). ZooKeys 315: 65. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.315.5307

The wasp family Platygastridae is a large group of tiny, exclusively parasitoid wasps distributed worldwide. The genera Odontacolus and Cyphacolus, belonging to this family, are among the most distinctive wasps because of the peculiar hump-like formation on the rear part of their bodies. Despite their intriguing body shape, the generic status of these two groups has remained unclear. A new extensive study published in the open access Zookeys presents a morphological phylogenetic analysis including an astonishing 32 new species.

The peculiar shape of the so called horn structure on the back of these wasps is believed to be linked to the ovipositor system of the species. Only between 1 to maximum 2.5 mm long, these tiny wasps are actually vicious parasitoids, using their ovipositor to inject eggs into spider eggs, thus ensuring the development of their offspring at the expense of other species.

Previously considered to be relatively rare based on material available in collections, recent intensive collecting using Malaise and yellow-pan traps has revealed that some species of Odontacolus are moderately common, leading to the description of 32 species from across Africa, Australia and Asia.

“This has been an intriguing study for several reasons; it has uncovered many new species of this group of wasps; their biology is particularly fascinating given they parasitise the eggs of spiders, and their horn like structure makes them very easy to identify.”, comments Professor Andy Austin.

Original Source:

Valerio AA, Austin AD, Masner L, Johnson NF (2013) Systematics of Old World Odontacolus Kieffer s.l. (Hymenoptera, Platygastridae s.l.): parasitoids of spider eggs. ZooKeys 314: 1. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.314.3475