Blog

Field and laboratory work by Omar Torres-Carvajal from Museo de Zoología QCAZ, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, and his former undergraduate student Simón Lobos has resulted in the discovery of a gem-looking new species of shade lizard from the cloudforests in northwestern Ecuador. This region is part of the 274,597 km2 Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena hotspot that lies west of the Andes. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

Shade lizards (genus Alopoglossus) are widely distributed across tropical South America. They differ from most other lizards in having their tongues covered by folds instead of scale-like papillae. Shade lizards are generally brown leaf-litter dwellers that live on both sides of the tropical Andes. The unusually brightly coloured new species described by Torres-Carvajal and Lobos was named Alopoglossus viridiceps and increases to seven the number of species of this group of lizards, six of which live in Ecuador.

Lizards collected as far back as 1977 and deposited in Museo de Zoología QCAZ were examined. The authors were soon surprised with an interesting finding. Some individuals collected during the last five years, mostly at the Santa Lucía Cloud Forest Reserve in northwestern Ecuador, had a metallic greenish head and an orange belly.

Other features like numbers of scales, as well as DNA evidence, indicated that these cloudforest lizards actually belong to a new species. DNA data also suggest that its closest relative is Alopoglossus festae, a species that inhabits the Pacific lowlands of Colombia and Ecuador.

‘Simón Lobos and I have been working on shade lizards since 2010, and we have preliminary data suggesting that the widespread Pacific shade lizard, Alopoglossus festae, might actually represent several species new to science. The same pattern of “hidden diversity” applies to the Amazonian species. Therefore, the diversity of shade lizards has been underestimated. We are presently working on papers to share these discoveries with the scientific community.’ said Dr. Torres-Carvajal.

Additional Information:

This research was funded by Secretaría de Educación Superior, Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación del Ecuador (SENESCYT) and Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador (PUCE)

 

Original source:

Torres-Carvajal O, Lobos SE (2014) A new species of Alopoglossus lizard (Squamata, Gymnophthalmidae) from the tropical Andes, with a molecular phylogeny of the genus. ZooKeys 410: 105–120. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.410.7401

Scientists describe a new species of praying mantis, Dystacta tigrifrutex, or the bush tiger mantis from Rwanda’s mountainous Nyungwe National Park. Like all praying mantises the new species is a vicious hunter. The wingless females are adapted for catching prey close to the ground and in the undergrowth, which inspired the name of the species due to the similarities in hunting practices with one of the world’s favorite big cats. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

The new species was discovered on a cool and rainy night in a thick montane forest during a survey of the insects in Nyungwe National Park in southwestern Rwanda. The light traps used by the scientists attracted a male specimen of what then seemed as an unknown species of praying mantis, which unlike the female is winged and flew there attracted to the light.

When the scientists reached to the leaf litter they also found the female of what turned out to be the same new species. But the surprises of this lucky find did not finish there.

Soon after the female was placed in captivity, she laid an egg case, called an ootheca, and the researchers were later able to see the emerging nymphs. This lucky string of events allowed scientists to describe in one go the male, female, nymphal stages and a large portion of the biology of the new species which rarely happens in insect biology.

The three-week Rwanda survey turned up a wealth of finds among which the bush tiger mantis was the only new species, but after 8 months of identifying the collected insects the researchers also found a dozen new to Rwanda.

“We knew this mantis was special after completing nearly eight months of work to identify all the specimens found during the three week expedition,” said Riley, who is studying evolutionary biology at Case Western Reserve University. “The new species is amazing because the fairly small female prowls through the underbrush searching for prey while the male flies and appears to live higher in the vegetation.”

“The new praying mantis species was found in the high altitude rain forest region of southwestern Rwanda and probably only lives within Nyungwe National Park, which adds significant justification for protecting the park to ensure species like this can continue to exist,” said Dr. Gavin Svenson, curator of invertebrate zoology at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History and adjunct professor at Case Western Reserve University.

After such a fruitful collaboration the two lead authors Dr. Gavin Svenson, Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Riley Tedrow, Case Western Reserve University, and fellow researchers in Rwanda, they plan to return to Nyungwe in June to survey more mantises where they found the bush tiger and to search several other locations in the park. They hope to return with more new species as well as to learn whether the bush tiger’s habitat is limited or more broadly spread.

Original Source:

Tedrow R, Nathan K, Richard N, Svenson GJ (2014) A new species of Dystacta Saussure, 1871 from Nyungwe National Park, Rwanda (Insecta, Mantodea, Dystactinae). ZooKeys 410: 1. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.410.7053

Smithsonian scientists describe a colorful new species of small coral reef sea bass from depths of 182–241 m off Curaçao, southern Caribbean. With predominantly yellow body and fins, the new species, Liopropoma santi, closely resembles the other two “golden basses” found together with it at Curaçao: L. aberrans and L. olneyi.

The scientists originally thought there was a single species of golden bass on deep reefs off Curaçao, but DNA data, distinct color patterns, and morphology revealed three. The study describing one of those, L. santi—the deepest known species of Liopropoma in the Atlantic Ocean, was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

Dr. Carole C. Baldwin and Dr. D. Ross Robertson, who discovered the new species, propose the common name “spot-tail golden bass” to distinguish it from the other golden bass species, referencing the dark spot on the lower part of the tail fin. It appears to be more closely related to the other new deep-reef golden bass from Curaçao, Liopropoma olneyi, and members of a related genus, Bathyanthias, than to species of Liopropoma such as the candy and peppermint basses inhabiting shallower reefs.

“With Bathyanthias falling out within the western Atlantic Liopropoma clade,” notes Baldwin, “further study of the classification of this group is needed.” The researchers also note that related groups of Liopropoma species have different depth distributions, suggesting that depth may have played a role in their evolution.

To collect deep-reef fish specimens, the scientists are diving to 300 m off Curaçao using a manned submersible, the Curasub. “This underexplored zone between 60 and 300 m in the tropical southern Caribbean is revealing extraordinary biodiversity, including a wealth of new species of beautifully colored fishes,” says Baldwin. “It’s a zone that science has largely missed because it’s too deep to access using scuba gear, and deep-diving submersibles rarely stop at such shallow depths.”

As part of the Smithsonian Institution’s Deep Reef Observation Project (DROP), Smithsonian scientists are working to improve our knowledge of Caribbean deep-reef biodiversity.

Original Source:

Baldwin CC, Robertson RD (2014) A new Liopropoma sea bass (Serranidae, Epinephelinae, Liopropomini) from deep reefs off Curaçao, southern Caribbean, with comments on depth distributions of western Atlantic liopropomins. ZooKeys 409: 71–92. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.409.7249

The recently extinct Caribbean monk seal (Monachus tropicalis) was one of three species of monk seal in the world. Its relationship to the Mediterranean and Hawaiian monk seals, both living but endangered, has never been fully understood. Through DNA analysis and skull comparisons, however, Smithsonian scientists and colleagues have now clarified the Caribbean species’ place on the seal family tree and created a completely new genus. The team’s findings are published in the scientific journal ZooKeys.

First reported by Columbus in 1494, the Caribbean monk seal ranged throughout the Caribbean with an estimated population in the hundreds of thousands. Unrestricted hunting in the 19th century, however, caused a rapid decline in numbers. The last definite sighting of a Caribbean monk seal was in 1952, making it the most recent extinction of a marine mammal in the Western Hemisphere.

To find the answers about the classification of the Caribbean monk seal, the scientists turned to DNA extracted from century-old monk seal skins in the Smithsonian’s collections. For the DNA comparisons, the Smithsonian team worked with scientists at the Leibniz Institute of Zoo and Wildlife Research in Germany and Fordham University in New York. Their analyses showed that the Caribbean species was more closely related to the Hawaiian rather than the Mediterranean monk seal. It also showed that Caribbean and Hawaiian monk seals split into distinct species around 3 to 4 million years ago―the same time the Panamanian Isthmus closed off the connection between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, which would have naturally separated the two.

“Scientists have long understood that monk seals are very special animals,” said Kristofer Helgen, curator of mammals at Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. “This study is exciting because it gives us a clearer view of their evolution and provides us with new context that highlights the importance of conserving these remarkable and endangered seals.”

The team’s analysis determined that the molecular and morphological differences between the Mediterranean species and the two New World species (Caribbean and Hawaiian) were profound. This led them to classify the Caribbean and Hawaiian monk seals in a newly named genus, Neomonachus. This remarkable discovery is the first time in more than 140 years that a new genus has been recognized amongst modern pinnipeds (seals, sea lions, and walruses).

“We occasionally identify new species of larger mammals, like the olinguito we announced last year,” said Graham Slater, co-author and Peter Buck Post Doctoral Fellow at the Smithsonian. “But to be able to name a new genus, and a seal genus at that, is incredibly rare and a great honor.”

Monk seals, as a group, are unusual among seals in being adapted for life in warm water. With the Caribbean species now extinct, the Hawaiian monk seal is the last surviving species of the genus Neomonachus, as the Mediterranean species is in its genus, Monachus. Both species are listed as “critically endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. With about 1,200 Hawaiian but less than 600 Mediterranean monk seals left, they are some of the rarest mammals on Earth.

Original Source:

Scheel DM, Slater GJ, Kolokotronis S-O, Potter CW, Rotstein DS, Tsangaras K, Greenwood AD, Helgen KM (2014) Biogeography and taxonomy of extinct and endangered monk seals illuminated by ancient DNA and skull morphology. ZooKeys 409: 1-33. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.409.6244

In recent years the cattle egret (Bubulcus ibis) has colonized American continent. Invasive species are a worldwide problem and studies are devoted to assess the damage they cause to local species populations. Thus, the process of colonization of a new territory that has continental dimensions such as Brazil offers an excellent opportunity to examine how non-native species disperse, adapt and survive. A new study of the colonization patterns of the cattle egret in Brazil, published in the open access journal NeoBiota, offers a new take on the study of alien species.

The cattle egret primarily inhabits grassland habitats and forages in close association with grazing animals, such as cattle and other livestock. This bird is native to tropical and subtropical Africa, southern Europe and western Asia. The populations of cattle egret in Brazil are alien to the region but unlike a number of bird species that have been introduced to non-native areas through human intervention, the cattle egret is known to have established and expanded to the Americas without such intervention.

The first sightings in the New World were reported for Suriname between 1877 and 1882 in the North of South America, followed by sightings in British Guiana and Colombia and subsequent expansion throughout the Americas. In Brazil, the cattle egret was first recorded in the northern region of the country in 1964, feeding along with buffalos on Marajo Island in the state of Para.

Novel colonizers can cause problems outside of their native range. While the cattle egret is not currently a threat to native fauna in Brazil throughout most of its geographic distribution, it has the potential to produce adverse effects, as evidenced by its occupation of island environments. For example, in the Fernando de Noronha archipelago, the cattle egret drives adult native seabirds away from their nests in breeding colonies and predates the Noronha skink, which is endemic to the archipelago.

Understanding how the cattle egret colonized Brazil is crucial for the better understanding of dispersal patterns of bird populations and their interaction with the local species. Explaining the colonization of the Americas by the cattle egret is a challenging task due to the lack of sufficient information and reports on entrance time, locality, and number of events. Comparisons between native and non-native populations can provide a ‘natural’ experimental approach to clarify the biological and environmental factors that may contribute to range expansion and adaptation to climate change, and to reveal mechanisms by which organisms respond to novel ecological and environmental pressures.

Original Source:

Moralez-Silva E, Del Lama SN (2014) Colonization of Brazil by the cattle egret (Bubulcus ibis) revealed by mitochondrial DNA. In: Capdevila-Argüelles L, Zilletti B (Eds) Proceedings of 7th NEOBIOTA conference, Pontevedra, Spain. NeoBiota 21: 49–63. doi: 10.3897/neobiota.21.4966

Scientists from the University of the Philippines, Los Baños have discovered a new plant species with an unusual lifestyle — it eats nickel for a living — accumulating up to 18,000 ppm of the metal in its leaves without itself being poisoned, says Professor Edwino Fernando, lead author of the report. Such an amount is a hundred to a thousand times higher than in most other plants. The study was published in the open access journal PhytoKeys.

The new species is called Rinorea niccolifera, reflecting its ability to absorb nickel in very high amounts. Nickel hyperaccumulation is such a rare phenomenon with only about 0.5–1% of plant species native to nickel-rich soils having been recorded to exhibit the ability. Throughout the world, only about 450 species are known with this unusual trait, which is still a small proportion of the estimated 300,000 species of vascular plants.

The new species, according to Dr Marilyn Quimado, one of the lead scientists of the research team, was discovered on the western part of Luzon Island in the Philippines, an area known for soils rich in heavy metals.

“Hyperacccumulator plants have great potentials for the development of green technologies, for example, ‘phytoremediation’ and ‘phytomining'”, explains Dr Augustine Doronila of the School of Chemistry, University of Melbourne, who is also co-author of the report.

Phytoremediation refers to the use of hyperacccumulator plants to remove heavy metals in contaminated soils. Phytomining, on the other hand, is the use of hyperacccumulator plants to grow and harvest in order to recover commercially valuable metals in plant shoots from metal-rich sites.

The field surveys and laboratory work of the scientists are part of the research project funded by the Department of Science and Technology – Philippine Council for Industry, Energy, and Emerging Technology Research and Development (DOST-PCIEERD).

 

Original source:

Fernando ES, Quimado MO, Doronila AI (2014) Rinorea niccolifera (Violaceae), a new, nickel-hyperaccumulating species from Luzon Island, Philippines. PhytoKeys 37: 1–13. doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.37.7136

Some Ecuadorian tribes were famous for making mummified shrunken heads from the remains of their conquered foes. Field work in the cloud forests of Ecuador by Professor Scott Shaw, University of Wyoming, Laramie, and colleagues, has resulted in the discovery of 24 new species of Aleiodes wasps that mummify caterpillars. The research by Eduardo Shimbori, Universidade Federal de São Carlos, Brazil, and Scott Shaw, was recently published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

Among the 24 new insect species described by Shimbori and Shaw, several were named after famous people including the comedians and television hosts Jimmy Fallon, John Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Ellen DeGeneres, as well as the Ecuadorian artist Eduardo Kingman, American poet Robert Frost, and Colombian singer and musician, Shakira.

The Shakira wasp causes its host caterpillar to bend and twist in an unusual way, which reminded the authors of belly-dancing, for which the South American performer is also famous. In a previous work, Shaw had named a species after David Letterman.

“These wasps are very small organisms, being only 4 to 9 millimeters long, but they have an enormous impact on forest ecology.” Shaw said. Aleiodes wasps are parasites of forest caterpillars. The female wasps search for a particular kind of caterpillar, and inject an egg into it. Parasitism by the wasp does not immediately kill the caterpillar, but it continues to feed and grow for a time. Eventually, feeding by the wasp larva causes the host caterpillar to shrink and mummify, then the immature wasp makes its cocoon inside the mummified remains of its conquered prey.

When it completes its development, the young wasp cuts an exit hole from the caterpillar mummy and flies away to mate, and continue this cycle of parasitic behavior. “Killing and mummifying caterpillars may sound bad, but these are actually highly beneficial insects.” Shaw says. “These wasps are helping to naturally control the populations of plant-feeding caterpillars, so they help to sustain the biodiversity of tropical forests.”

Shaw tells more about the behavior of parasitic wasps and other insects in his forthcoming book, Planet of the Bugs, due to be published by the University of Chicago Press in September.

The field research was conducted by Shaw at the Yanayacu cloud forest research station of Napo Province, in the eastern Andes slopes of Ecuador. Previous research by Shaw had discovered nine species of mummy-making wasps at the site, and others are known from around the world, but the full extent of these insect’s biodiversity in Ecuador did not become apparent until recently, when Shimbori and Shaw collaborated to name them all. The research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, called Caterpillars and Parasitoids of the Eastern Andes.

Original source:

Shimbori, E and Shaw, SR (2014) Twenty-four new species of Aleiodes Wesmael from the eastern Andes of Ecuador with associated biological information (Hymenoptera, Braconidae, Rogadinae). Zookeys 405: 1-81. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.405.7402

 

Additional information:

Shaw, SR (2014) Planet of the Bugs, Evolution and the Rise of Insects. University of Chicago Press, 256 pages. ISBN: 9780226163611. http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo18507885.html

Swiss scientists have discovered a new species of aculeate wasp, not hidden somewhere in a jungle on a remote continent, but in Central Europe, in a swampy area just a few kilometers from Zurich. The new species named “Polistes helveticus“, or the Swiss paper wasp, was described in the open access journal ZooKeys.

Paradoxically, this species has been long known in Central Europe but was confused for decades with a closely related species native to southern Europe. Only after the latter expanded its range to northern Switzerland, possibly following climate change, was the confusion noticed.

Six years ago, the Swiss entomologist Rainer Neumeyer discovered a population of paper wasps in wetlands close to Zurich. He thought that he had found P. bischoffi, a well-known species in Switzerland. But at the same location he found another species which, although quite similar to the first, was unusual and could not be identified with certainty.

Neumeyer contacted scientists Gaston-Denis Guex from the University of Zurich, Hannes Baur from the Natural History Museum of Bern, and Christophe Praz from the University of Neuchatel. Together, the scientists used genetic and morphometric analyses to confirm the coexistence of two distinct species at the locality close to Zurich: a northern taxon, already well known from Central Europe, and a little known taxon mostly distributed in southern Europe.

After reviewing the information on the type material, the scientists came to the conclusion that the southern species was P. bischoffi, described 80 years ago from Sardinia. The northern species was given the name P. helveticus.

The southern species was not present in northern Switzerland until recently. The confusion was only revealed after P. bischoffi expanded its distribution northwards, possibly following climate change.

Original Source:

Neumeyer R, Baur H, Guex G-D, Praz C (2014) A new species of the paper wasp genus Polistes (Hymenoptera, Vespidae, Polistinae) in Europe revealed by morphometrics and molecular analyses. ZooKeys 400: 67–118. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.400.6611

A team of scientists from the Universidad de La República, Uruguay discovered three native to northern Argentina new species of the engaging spider group of the tarantulas. The study describing the newly found tarantulas was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

The often hairy and very large spiders known as tarantulas are one of the most famous arachnid groups. Despite their ill fame as vicious killers most tarantulas are harmless to humans. Most tarantulas long lifespans, females can live between 15 and 30 years, which makes them a preferred pet for spider lovers around the world.

The subfamily Theraphosinae to which the three new species belong is a large group of tarantulas distributed exclusively in the New World, whose greatest diversity is found in South America. The 3 new additions are native to the northern parts of Argentina, a region which inspired their names.

Melloleitaoina mutquina, for example has its name derived from the specific epithet mutquina, a noun which means place or thing to smell in Quichua language. This poetic name refers to the locality of Mutquín, where this species is distributed and denotes the aroma of the flora of the region that emerges after rain, perfuming the village of aromatic herbs.

Similarly, M. uru was inspired an ancient legend Quichua, from the northern limit of Argentina, about the Inca princess Uru, who because of her whims and bad government was transformed by the gods into a spider and forced to endlessly work weaving. Lastly, the third new species M. yupanqui, was named to honor to the most important Argentine musician of folklore Atahualpa Yupanqui, pseudonym of Héctor Roberto Chavero Aramburu.

Original Source:

Perafán C, Pérez-Miles F (2014) Three new species of Melloleitaoina Gerschman & Schiapelli, 1960 (Araneae, Mygalomorphae, Theraphosidae) from northern Argentina. ZooKeys 404: 117–129. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.404.6243

The Apodanthaceae are small parasitic plants living almost entirely inside other plants. They occur in Africa, Iran, Australia, and the New World. Bellot and Renner propose the first revision of the species relationships in the family based on combined molecular and anatomical data. They show that Apodanthaceae comprise 10 species, which are specialized to parasitize either legumes or species in the willow family.

Few plants are obligate parasites, and fewer still are endo-parasites, meaning they live entirely within their host, emerging only to flower and fruit. Naturally, these plants are rarely collected, and their ecology, evolution, and taxonomy are therefore poorly understood. Perhaps the weirdest of these families is the Apodanthaceae, which Bellot and Renner now deal with in a paper in PhytoKeys.

Based on most material available of this family, they conclude that it has 10 species occurring in Australia, Africa, Iran, California, Central America and South America. Because the environment that matters to Apodanthaceae is the host, not anything outside it, these plants occur from the lowlands to 2500 m altitude and from deserts to Amazonian forest.

Bellot and Renner obtained DNA data to investigate species limits, and they also provide a key to all species, many illustrations, and a distribution map. The work will thus literally help putting Apodanthaceae on the map.

“I am currently assembling the plastid genome of the African species,” says Bellot, “and am already seeing that it is extremely reduced, fitting with the special lifestyle of Apodanthaceae.”

Original source:

Bellot S, Renner SS (2014) The systematics of the worldwide endoparasite family Apodanthaceae (Cucurbitales), with a key, a map, and color photos of most species. PhytoKeys 36: 41. doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.36.7385

 

Additional information:

Funding came from the German Research Foundation (DFG RE 603/16-1).