Category: Uncategorized

While watching tiny flies in tropical forests in Brazil, Giar-Ann Kung puzzledly remarked to Brian Brown “they are cutting the ant heads off!” This unexpected find led to the discovery of a grisly new type of behavior reported this month in Biodiversity Data Journal.

In the world of small insects, there is an astonishing variety of bizarre behaviors, but one of the most extreme is that of the ant decapitating flies of the family Phoridae. These tiny (1 to 3 mm long) flies inject their eggs into the bodies of ants, where after hatching the resulting larvae feed inside the host ant’s head, eventually causing it to fall off. Such ant decapitating flies have been known for over 100 years, but recently scientists from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County have discovered a second, completely different type of ant decapitation in the Phoridae.

This new discovery involves a group of flies in a genus called Dohrniphora, best known as scavengers, because of one widespread, human associated species that is common in cities around the world. Another group of species native to South and Central America, however, do something different. Adult female flies are attracted to injured trap-jaw ants, from which they industriously sever the gut, nerve cord, and other connections of the head to the rest of the body. After working on it for a few minutes with their blade tipped mouthparts, the flies use their front legs to grab onto the ant head and tug until it pops off. The fly then drags the ant head off across the forest floor to a secluded spot where it either feeds on the head contents or lays an egg nearby.

The researchers were stunned the first time they saw this intricate headhunting behavior. Lead author, Dr. Brian V. Brown, says they were watching for another type of fly when theseDohrniphora turned up. At first, they were uninterested in these “scavengers”, but after Kung’s remark they watched, amazed, as the flies performed an intricate decapitation behavior, and then set off across the forest floor dragging their headhunting trophies.

In their paper, Brown, Kung, and co-author Wendy Porras document this ant – fly interaction with both photos and videos. Phorid flies are among the most biologically diverse families of insects, but the lifestyles of most are completely unknown. Nevertheless, as Brown quips, “you would think one type of ant decapitation would be enough for the family!”

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Video 1: A female of D. conlanorum processing and eventually decapitating an injuredOdontomachus ant at La Suerre, Costa Rica. (Credit: Brian V. Brown) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8FZbcG91DA

Video 2: A female of D. oricilla cutting the head off an injured Odontomachus ant at La Cangreja NP, Costa Rica. (Credit: Brian V. Brown) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZNtZSlGEPc

 

Original source:

Brown B, Kung G, Porras W (2015) A new type of ant-decapitation in the Phoridae (Insecta: Diptera). Biodiversity Data Journal 3: e4299.doi: 10.3897/BDJ.3.e4299

Indonesian islands. Museum scientists from Germany and their local counterparts used an innovative approach for rapid collection of biodiversity data to beat the fast rates of extinction and disappearance of rainforests. A species named in honor of Sir David Attenborough, as well as 98 others can be viewed by everyone in the open access journalZooKeys.

The tropical islands of Java, Bali and Lombok are popular tourist destinations, but remnants of their original rain forests still harbor a largely unexplored insect fauna. Museum scientists from Germany and from the Indonesian Research Center of Biology went to the woods and searched the leaf litter for a specific group of beetles, the weevil genusTrigonopterus. Only one out of 99 species had already been stored in museum collections. All the other 98 had never been seen by a human eye before.

German researchers Alexander Riedel (Natural History Museum Karlsruhe) and Michael Balke (Zoological State Collection Munich), have already had this experience in the remote forests of New Guinea. They explain “it was surprising that in Bali even areas regularly visited by package tours can be the home of unknown species”.

Yayuk R. Suhardjono adds: “Many of these species are restricted to small areas; sometimes they are found only in a single locality. These beetles are wingless and usually stay for millions of years where they are. This makes them extremely vulnerable to changes of their habitat.”

To describe all these new species using traditional approaches would take a lifetime, but there is no time to waste! Java, Bali and Lombok are densely populated, so natural forests are easily converted to agriculture if the public is unaware of their value. A portion of each weevil species’ DNA was sequenced, which helped to sort out and diagnose species efficiently. Besides, high-resolution photographs of each weevil were taken and uploaded to the Species ID website, along with a short scientific description. Ninety-eight species were brought to the light of science and public attention this way right now.

It was also a challenge to find suitable names for so many new species. Some could be based on their respective localities; others were named by the Indonesian numbers one to twelve; however, the easiest choice was to name one for Sir David Attenborough in recognition of his outstanding documentaries on natural history. It can be hoped that the documentation of nature´s beauty finally leads to an effective protection of this heritage.

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Original Sources:

Riedel A, Tänzler R, Balke M, Rahmadi C, Suhardjono YR (2014) Ninety-eight new species ofTrigonopterus weevils from Sundaland and the Lesser Sunda Islands. ZooKeys 467: 1-162. doi:10.3897/zookeys.467.8206

Scientists from the Southwest University, Chongqing, China have found a new species and a new subspecies of cockroach. What makes these creepy crawlies distinctive from the cockroaches most of us know is that they don’t infest human houses, on the contrary they prefer to live a hermit life drilling logs, hidden away from human eyes. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

Out of around 4,600 species worldwide, only 30 are the cockroaches associated with human habitats that gives the bad fame of these creatures. The representatives of the genus Panesthia, to which the new species and subspecies belong, for example are distinctive for drilling logs and xylophagy (feeding on wood), rather than living in houses and eating rubbish.

The new species, P. guizhouensis, was firstly collected from a rotten wood near a large pool where was living undisturbed, and far away from cities in Guizhou Province. A colony of more than 60 nymphs and 52 adults, emerged from the log when the wood was split, quickly fleeing away.

Up to now, 55 species and 9 subspecies have been reported in this genus but because of their secluded lifestyle, these cockroaches are still mysterious to scientists, and their study had been nearly stagnated since 1999. “With this new discovery, we hope to reignite the scientific interest towards this peculiar and rather intriguing cockroach genus.” comments Dr Yanli Che, Southwest University, China.

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Original Source:

Wang X, Wang Z, Che Y (2014) A taxonomic study of the genus Panesthia (Blattodea, Blaberidae, Panesthiinae) from China with descriptions of one new species, one new subspecies and the male of Panesthia antennata. ZooKeys 466: 53-75. doi:10.3897/zookeys.466.8111

A team of Belgian researchers constructed a focus stacking set-up made of consumer grade products with better end results than high-end solutions and this at only a tenth of the prize of current existing systems. Because of the operational ease, speed and the low cost of the system, it is ideal for mass digitization programs involving type specimens. The study was published in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

Enthusiasts or scientists, many struggle to take high quality pictures of the tiny animals of the micro world. When they eventually succeed in their effort, it is clear that rarely the entire subject is in focus.

However, a solution exists to overcome the problem of small focussed area in macro photography: focus stacking. In this technique many pictures need to be shot with different focus ranges. The entire set of pictures will be glued together into one image with the entire subject in focus. This is nothing innovative, as the technique exists already for several years. Many microscope companies offer solutions to produce these sets of pictures of any subject at the other end of the lens. The downside is that these set-ups are only available at high prices.

The presented set-up by Jonathan Brecko working as a scientist for the Royal Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS) and the Royal Museum of Central Africa (RMCA) (both Federal Belgian Institutes), produces the same or even better results than the high-end solutions tested in the manuscript. And this for only a fraction of the cost (8 to 10 times less).

The set-up is fairly easy to control and consists of consumer grade products, making it easy to replace when needed. The central idea of the set-up is to place both the subject and the light system within a simple kitchen closet.

Thanks to the low noise and high resolution of the 65 mm macro photo lens used for the project and the lighting system placed within the closet, it is fairly straightforward to produce high detailed quality pictures. Even specimens within alcohol pose no problems at all to be pictured.

This set-up can be an important tool to aid in digitization programs, because the highly detailed pictures can in some cases replace the need to ship or send very fragile specimens for study in all kinds of disciplines. At the moment the set-up is used in the digitization programs involving type specimens at RBINS and RMCA.

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Original source:

Brecko J, Mathys A, Dekoninck W, Leponce M, VandenSpiegel D, Semal P (2014) Focus stacking: Comparing commercial top-end set-ups with a semi-automatic low budget approach. A possible solution for mass digitization of type specimens. ZooKeys 464: 1-23. doi:10.3897/zookeys.464.8615

Additional Information:

This research has been conducted in the context of the Agora 3D Project (AG/LL/164) and DIGIT03 funded by the federal Belgian Science Policy (BELSPO) and the European FP7 SYNTHESYS 3 program.

The extinction of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago is thought to have paved the way for mammals to dominate, but a new study shows that many mammals died off alongside the dinosaurs.

Metatherian mammals–the extinct relatives of living marsupials (“mammals with pouches”, such as opossums) thrived in the shadow of the dinosaurs during the Cretaceous period. The new study, by an international team of experts on mammal evolution and mass extinctions, shows that these once-abundant mammals nearly followed the dinosaurs into oblivion.

When a 10-km-wide asteroid struck what is now Mexico at the end of the Cretaceous and unleashed a global cataclysm of environmental destruction, some two-thirds of all metatherians living in North America perished. This includes more than 90% of species living in the northern Great Plains of the USA, the best area in the world for preserving latest Cretaceous mammal fossils.

In the aftermath of the mass extinction, metatherians would never recover their previous diversity, which is why marsupial mammals are rare today and largely restricted to unusual environments in Australia and South America.

Taking advantage of the metatherian demise were the placental mammals: species that give live birth to well-developed young. They are ubiquitous across the globe today and include everything from mice to men.

Dr. Thomas Williamson of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, lead author on the study, said: “This is a new twist on a classic story. It wasn’t only that dinosaurs died out, providing an opportunity for mammals to reign, but that many types of mammals, such as most metatherians, died out too – this allowed advanced placental mammals to rise to dominance.”

Dr. Steve Brusatte of the University of Edinburgh‘s School of GeoSciences, an author on the report, said: “The classic tale is that dinosaurs died out and mammals, which had been waiting in the wings for over 100 million years, then finally had their chance. But our study shows that many mammals came perilously close to extinction. If a few lucky species didn’t make it through, then mammals may have gone the way of the dinosaurs and we wouldn’t be here.”

The new study is published in the open access journal ZooKeys. It reviews the Cretaceous evolutionary history of metatherians and provides the most up-to-date family tree for these mammals based on the latest fossil records, which allowed researchers to study extinction patterns in unprecedented detail.

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Dr. Gregory Wilson of the University of Washington also took part in the study.

The work was supported by the US National Science Foundation and the European Commission.

 

Original Source:

Williamson TE, Brusatte SL, Wilson GP (2014) The origin and early evolution of metatherian mammals: the Cretaceous record. ZooKeys 465: 1-76. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.465.8178

A team of Chinese and Italian scientists has joined efforts to provide a key to the understudied phaleratus group of blister beetles. During their research the scientists have also discovered a new species from the genus Hycleus, which they named after Marco Polo, as a tribute to their collaboration during the Ph.D. studies. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

The phaleratus group to which the new species Hycleus marcipoli belongs, is part of the Meloidae family commonly known as the blister beetle family. The representatives of this group get their unpleasant name from their defensive mechanism which includes secretion of a blistering agent.

The name of the new species was inspired by the Chinese – Italian collaboration during this research. Marco Polo (1254-1324), was a Venetian explorer who, during a long period of permanence F in China in the late XIII century (1271-1284), established the first well documented relationships between the Chinese and European worlds and opened western culture to the wide and rich Chinese heritage.

“We were extremely happy to discover a new species during our studies of the Chinese species of the genus Hycleus. We were wondering for a while how to name it until we came up with the idea to name it after Marco Polo a historical figure which represents the beginning of collaboration between China and the West. ” comments Dr Marco A. Bologna from the Università degli studi Roma Tre, Italy.

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Original Source:

Pan Z, Monica C, Bologna MA (2014) A new Eastern Asian Hycleus and key to the Chinese species of the phaleratus group (Coleoptera, Meloidae, Mylabrini). ZooKeys 463: 11-19. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.463.8261

In 1912, three species in the parasitic wasp genus Ophion were described by two different entomologists, increasing the number of known species in North America to eleven. It has long been known that the actual diversity is much higher; however, it took 102 years for any additional species to be described.

“The main reason for this is that everyone has assumed that Ophion are just too difficult to tell apart. Museum collections are full of unidentified Ophion, but nobody has wanted to face the challenge of sorting them out” said Marla Schwarzfeld, an entomologist who recently completed her Ph.D. at the University of Alberta, Canada.

In fact, the author of one of the species described in 1912, Claude Morley, stated: “Without abundant material it were ridiculous to attempt a wide revision of these insects; and … a mass of this material causes one’s courage to sink at the sight of so uniform and apparently characterless a group.”

However, with the advent of new taxonomic tools, it is no longer necessary to rely solely on the challenging morphology of the group. Schwarzfeld and her Ph.D. supervisor, Felix Sperling, used a combination of molecular and morphometric analyses to define a new species group within Ophion, and to delimit and describe six new species within this group. The molecular work involved the analysis of three different genetic markers, while the morphometric analyses included both an analysis of wing venation and a more traditional approach of measuring various body parts. The study, including the new descriptions, has recently been published in the open-access journal, ZooKeys.
“The exciting part about this work is that these techniques all gave remarkably congruent results, which gives us a lot of confidence in these new species. This takes a lot of the guesswork out of describing species, and will be a really valuable toolkit for studying additional species of Ophion, as well as species in other morphogically-challenging groups” declared Schwarzfeld.

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Original Source:

Schwarzfeld MD, Sperling FAH (2014) Species delimitation using morphology, morphometrics, and molecules: definition of the Ophion scutellaris Thomson species group, with descriptions of six new species (Hymenoptera, Ichneumonidae). ZooKeys 462: 59-114. doi:10.3897/zookeys.462.8229

A group of researchers from Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University, Faculty of Fisheries in Turkey discovered a new trout species. The newly described species Salmo kottelati, belongs to the Salmonidae family, which includes salmons, trouts, chars, graylings and freshwater whitefishes.

Salmonids include over 200 species, which have a high economic value because of their taste and famed sporting qualities.

The genus Salmo is widely distributed in rivers and streams of basins of the Marmara, Black, Aegean and Mediterranean seas. The genus is represented by 12 species in Turkey.

The new species is distinguished from the other members of genera by having fewer parr marks along lateral line, and a larger mouth gape and maxilla, which is a part of the fish jaw.

Although salmonids commonly live in mountain lakes, headwater and upper reaches of streams and rivers, some species spend long parts of their lives in the sea but return to the rivers and streams for reproduce. This migratory lifestyle is known as anadromous. Salmonids are predatory fishes feeding on small crustaceans, aquatic insects and also small fish.

In order to understand the rich genus diversity in Turkey, samples were collected from more than 200 localities throughout the country between 2004 and 2014. The paper, published in the open access journal ZooKeys, focuses only on the Salmo species distributed in the Alakır Stream drainage, from where the new species was described.

The new species Salmo kottelati is named for Maurice Kottelat, who contributed to the knowledge of the fish fauna of Europe and Asia.

The new species inhabits cold and clear water, with moderate current, and gravel and pebble substrate. Its maximum known body length is 21 cm, while the largest representative of the family can reach up to 2 m in length.

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Original source:

 

Turan D, Doğan E, Kaya C, Kanyılmaz M (2014) Salmo kottelati, a new species of trout from Alakır Stream, draining to the Mediterranean in southern Anatolia, Turkey (Teleostei, Salmonidae). ZooKeys 462: 135-151. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.462.8177

In the depths of the Arctic Ocean, buried deep in the sediment, an ancient creature waited for over a million years to be discovered. Paul Valentich-Scott, from the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History (California), and three scientists from the United States Geological Survey (USGS, Menlo Park, California), Charles L. Powell, Brian D. Edwards, and Thomas D. Lorenson were up to the challenge. Each with different expertise, they were able to collect, analyze, and identify a new genus and new species of bivalve mollusk.

The path to discovery is seldom simple or easy. This discovery is no exception. Brian Edwards was the chief scientist on a joint US-Canadian ice breaker expedition aboard the US Coast Guard Cutter Healy in the summer of 2010. The primary purpose of the expedition was to map the Arctic seafloor and the sediments beneath. Dr. Edwards took deep sediment core samples to further understand the geology of the region including the unusual seafloor mound where these samples were collected. In several of these cores he uncovered bivalve seashells buried nearly 15 feet (4.5 m) below the seafloor surface.

Upon returning to his USGS laboratory in Menlo Park, California, Brian worked with Tom Lorenson on sampling the cores and extracting the shells. The recovered shells were then taken to USGS paleontologist Chuck Powell, for identification. While Chuck was able to ascertain the higher level classification of the clam shells (Family Thyasiridae), he was unable to determine the genus or species. Chuck contacted Paul Valentich-Scott, a clam specialist from the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History in California.

When examining these ancient shell specimens, Paul was fairly certain that they were new to science. The hunt to validate the potential new species was on. Paul contacted a number of thyasirid bivalve specialists around the world and all gave it a thumbs up as a new species. Further, several scientists felt it also might be a new genus (the level above species).

‘It is always exciting when you are the first person to be looking at a new creature’ declared Valentich-Scott. ‘While I have been fortunate to discover and describe many new species in my career, it is always exhilarating at the outset.’

Then the painstaking work began. Paul contacted museums around the globe and requested to borrow specimens that were potentially related to the new species. While he found many species that shared some characteristics, none matched the new Arctic specimens.

The four scientists have been writing up their findings for the past two years and now the work has been published in the international science journal ZooKeys.

The new genus and species is named after two individuals. The genus is named in honor of Dr. Thomas R. Waller a prominent paleontologist at the Smithsonian Institution. The suffix “concha” meaning shell, is combined to create the name Wallerconcha. The new species is named after Sara Powell the daughter of co-author Chuck Powell. Chuck was quick to mention “I want to name new species after all of my children.”

While many of the specimens collected were definitely fossils, the scientists can’t discount the new animal might still be alive today. One of the team members, Tom Lorenson, summarized it this way ‘The likely collection of living specimens of this species awaits expeditions to come.’ Who knows what other new creatures might be found in those expeditions?

 

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Original Source:

Valentich-Scott P, Powell II CL, Lorenson TD, Edwards BR (2014) A new genus and species of Thyasiridae (Mollusca, Bivalvia) from deep-water, Beaufort Sea, northern Alaska. ZooKeys 462: 11-26. doi:10.3897/zookeys.462.6790

Scientists from the Institute of Zoology with the Chinese Academy of Sciences have devoted years of their careers to study the astounding diversity hidden in the depths of the Xishuangbanna tropical rain forests. In a recent paper published in the open access journalZooKeys Prof. Shuqiang Li and his team reveal 30 new spider species, which constitutes a minor share of what is yet to be found in this biodiversity hotspot.

Xishuangbanna is situated in the southern part of Yunnan with the Lancang (Mekong) River flowing through it. The region is well-known for its rich biodiversity and is one of the few places in China that still maintains large tracts of tropical rain forest, which won its reputation as the “Kingdom of Tropical Fauna and Flora”.

Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) is a comprehensive botanical research institution that belongs to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). It is famous for holding over 10 thousand species of tropical and subtropical plants.

But what animal species are hidden in this remarkable place? Studying the rich fauna of rainforests can be a great challenge due to the extreme diversity of species and the hardships posed by the specific terrain.

When it comes to spiders Prof. Li and his team have attempted to unveil this mystery. Using multiple collecting methods they have been collecting samples in an area called Huludao since 2006. Covering only about 200 hectare of Xishuangbanna, this area has yielded a collection of approximately 700 spider species.

Out of this impressive species diversity until now the team has published about 250 new spider species from Xishuangbanna alone, with the 30 currently described in ZooKeys being a part of their ongoing work. However, Prof. Li said there are still around 100 new spider species to be published soon.

“The amazing biological diversity we have witnessed during our work on spiders in Huladao is perhaps only a part of what Xishuangbanna tropical rain forests hold. Studying the flora and fauna in biodiversity hotspots like these attests for the importance of their preservation, and gives a sad insight of what was lost with the destruction of forests elsewhere”, comments Prof. Li.

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Original Source:

Zhao Q, Li S (2014) New species of linyphiid spiders from Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, China (Araneae, Linyphiidae). ZooKeys 460: 1-181. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.460.7799