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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

The white toothed shrew genus Crocidura is known as the largest mammal genus, with more than 180 species distributed around the world. A recent genetic analysis of the white toothed shrew fauna of Vietnam revealed the misinterpretations of previous morphological studies of the species, including the description of a new species of these very small mammals. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

Describing new mammal species is an unusual event nowadays when mammal fauna has been by and large already thoroughly studied by zoologists during the previous centuries. Molecular analysis, however, presents an additional tool for the complex cases of morphological analysis, thus helping scientists to uncover previous mistakes, and even to find previously overlooked separate species.

The new species Crocidura sapaensis is a dark-grey and relatively small white toothed shrew, named after the Sa Pa District in Vietnam, where it was collected. During the study, the animals were found dwelling in a variety of the beautiful habitats in the vicinity of Tram Ton Station of Hoang Lien National Park, including mixed evergreen forest, banks of small streams and open grassy glades.

Previously confused with another species featured in this study (C. wuchihensis), the new species remained long unrecognized due to the great extent of morphological resemblance between the two. Judging solely by the looks, however, proved to be insufficient for the accurate recognition of species, with molecular analysis now offering scientists an opportunity to look under the surface.

“Our study concerns three species of Crocidura occurring in Vietnam, namely C. attenuata, C. tanakae and C. wuchihensis, and we came across an undescribed fourth species revealed by molecular analysis. While the molecular studies of Vietnamese material confirmed some of the results of the contemporaneous morphological studies, a number of anomalies were equally revealed, indicating the presence of several morphologically similar but molecularly distinct taxa.”, explains Paulina Jenkins, a zoologist at London’s Natural History Museum, about the horizons of the molecular analysis.

Original Source:

Jenkins PD, Abramov AV, Bannikova AA, Rozhnov VV (2013) Bones and genes: resolution problems in three Vietnamese species of Crocidura (Mammalia, Soricomorpha, Soricidae) and the description of an additional new species. ZooKeys 313: 61-79. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.313.4823

 

Notes to editors:

Winner of Best of the Best at the Museums and Heritage Awards 2013, the Natural History Museum welcomes more than five million visitors a year. It is also a world-leading science research center. Through its collections and scientific expertise it is helping to understand and maintain the diversity of our planet, with groundbreaking partnerships more than 70 countries around the world. For more information go to http://www.nhm.ac.uk

The new phase of the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) Open Access Support Project (EOASP) is starting today, 1 July 2013, with some slight changes in eligibility criteria.

The aim of the EOASP project is to increase the data flow into EOL, promulgate the open access publishing model in taxonomy and support and educate the next generation of taxonomists in open science principles. It provides assistance for taxonomists living in developing countries to publish their results in quality journals and pays tribute to retired taxonomists by continuously supporting their research. EOASP is also an initiative aiming to motivate publishers to modernize their publishing models and workflows.

The main change in the eligibility criteria concerns the content of the publication. Manuscripts will be considered for funding only if they contain at least 4 taxon treatments; they do not need to be newly described taxa. A good example is a genus treatment (re-description) consisting of at least three species treatments, either new or re-described.

The total amount of funding per paper is increased to USD 500. The support for larger papers (e.g., larger revisionary works or monographs) will be limited to the same maximum of USD 500; authors should meet the remaining costs themselves. 

To read the new eligibility criteria or on our website please follow the link which is copied below: http://www.pensoft.net/page.php?P=29

With the help of phylogenetic analysis, scientists describe three new fungus species from New Zealand. The new species belong to the widespread genus Gymnopus, part of the Omphalotaceae family, the most famous representative of which is the favorite of many Shiitake mushroom. The study was published in the open access journal Mycokeys.

Gymnopus imbricatus, G. ceraceicola and G. hakaroa can be recognized by their strong, unpleasant odor when crushed. The smell produced by these species is most commonly described as rotting cabbage or garlic. The species grow in colonies of just a few up to an impressive display of hundreds of fruitbodies on dead tree trunks or on the lower trunk parts of still living trees. Another characteristic is the presence of a waxy layer from which the fruitbodies emerge, which is usually colored in green due to the algae commonly living in the substance.

The species are described as part of an on-going study on the common larger fungi of New Zealand. To date, and across all fungal groups, there are around 8,000 species of fungi known in New Zealand, of which around 2,000 are indigenous and the remainder introduced in recent times. However, the figure for indigenous species represents perhaps 20% of the total, with the remainder undescribed. In addition, some of the names applied to New Zealand fungi in earlier periods are incorrect uses of names applied to northern hemisphere species, and the New Zealand fungi are different and indigenous species.

Phylogenetic studies indicate that some of these fungi represent ancient southern hemisphere lineages, whereas as others originate from the dispersal of northern hemisphere species followed by local radiation. “This paper is a small contribution to filling the gap in the knowledge of New Zealand and Southern hemisphere species and their origins – there is still a long way to go.”, said the lead author of the study, Dr. Jerry Cooper.

Original Source:

Cooper JA, Leonard PL (2013) Three new species of foetid Gymnopus in New Zealand. MycoKeys 7: 31-44, doi: 10.3897/mycokeys.7.4710

A new species of the peculiarly shaped spoon worms has been recently discovered in Japan, and described in the open access journal Zookeys. These animals derive their name from their elongated and spoon-like projection (the proboscis), issuing from the barrel- or sweet potato-like roundish body proper (the trunk).

The new species Arhynchite hayaoi was discovered on a sandy tidal flat named Hachi-no-higata of the Seto Inland Sea, Japan. Like most spoon worms, the new species has the typical peculiar spoon shaped proboscis. The animal is of a pinkish-yellow colour, and its body length reaches about 10 cm in total.

Spoon worms, scientifically called Echiura, are a small group of exclusively marine animals. Although they are members of annelid worms, most of which has segmented structure, they have lost segmentation during their evolutionary history. Like the new species from Japan, most spoon worms live in shallow waters, but some are connected with deep sea waters. Most representatives are deposit feeders, which means that they use their “spoon” to collect organic particles or fragments from their surroundings.

Previously confused with a different species, the newly described spoon worm used to be in fact rather abundant and collected in great numbers from intertidal to subtidal sandy bottoms for fish bait in the Seto Inland Sea, Japan. Now that the true identity of the species is recognised, it seems to be in decline, with numbers dropping to a point where the spoon worm lost this economic importance.

Original Source:

Tanaka M, Nishikawa T (2013) A new species of the genus Arhynchite (Annelida, Echiura) from sandy flats of Japan, previously referred to as Thalassema owstoni Ikeda, 1904. ZooKeys 312: 13–21, doi: 10.3897/zookeys.312.5456.

Scientists discovered a new species of burying beetle, Nicrophorus efferens. Burying beetles are well known to most naturalists because of their large size, striking black and red colors, and interesting reproductive behaviors – they bury small vertebrate carcasses which their offspring eat in an underground crypt, guarded by both parents. The study was published in the open access journal Zookeys.

This new species, known from only 6 specimens collected in 1968, sat unrecognized as an undescribed species for over 40 years. “It was a bit of good luck that led to our realization these specimens belonged to an undescribed species. My student, Tonya, was visiting Hawaii for some R&R and decided to look over the burying beetles held by the Bishop Museum. Her PhD research was focused on the biogeography and evolution of a subgroup of these beetles and she identified these six specimens as very interesting and possibly new. The discovery of new species in old collections is a common occurrence and one of the many reasons why museums like the Bishop play a vital role in helping us understand life on this planet.”, commented Dr. Sikes, University of Alaska Museum.

The second author, Tonya Mousseau, added, “Without my background and training in the taxonomy of beetles, particularly the burying beetles, this new species might never have been uncovered. This really reinforces the idea that classic training in taxonomy and systematics is absolutely necessary to discovering and understanding the biodiversity of earth.”

As far as the authors of this new species know, no one has seen this species alive. “It’s likely they bury small vertebrate carcasses, like their close relatives do, but if they have any different behaviors we’ll have to wait for future studies to learn of them. ”

The data underpinning the analyses reported in this paper are deposited at GBIF, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility:
http://ipt.pensoft.net/ipt/resource.do?r=type_specimen_data_for_new_species_nicrophorus_efferens

 

Original Source:

Sikes DS, Mousseau T (2013) Description of Nicrophorus efferens, new species, from Bougainville Island (Coleoptera, Silphidae, Nicrophorinae). ZooKeys 83, doi: 10.3897/zookeys.311.5141

Scientist describe a new striking species of moth from China with an engaging wing pattern. The new species Stenoloba solaris has its name inspired by the orange circular patch on its wings that resembles the rising sun. The study was published in the open access journal Zookeys.

“During a spring expedition to north-west Yunnan, a striking specimen of an undescribed Stenoloba was collected.”, explain the authors Drs. Pekarsky and Saldaitis, “Only a single male was caught at ultraviolet light on 24 May 2012 near Zhongdian in northwest China’s Yunnan province in the remote Baima Xue mountain range. The new species was collected in a wide river valley near mountain mixed forests dominated by various conifer trees, bushes and rhododendron.”

The newly described sun moth belongs to the family Noctuidae, also known as owlet moths, which refers to their robustly built bodies. With more than 35,000 known species out of estimated possibility for more than 100,000 in total total, they constitute the largest Lepidoptera family.

Several of the species from the family have economic importance with their larva living in the soil and feeding on the bases of some crops such as lettuce and cabbage. Other species have caterpillars which have the extraordinary ability to feed on some poisonous plants, the chemicals contained in which would definitely kill other insects.

Original Source:

Pekarsky O, Saldaitis A (2013) A new species of Stenoloba Staudinger, 1892 from China (Lepidoptera, Noctuidae, Bryophilinae). ZooKeys 310: 1, doi: 10.3897/zookeys.310.5125

A new peer reviewed open access data paper offers a comprehensive synthesis of the 36451 specimens preserved in the Herbarium of the University of Extremadura (UNEX Herbarium). The study was published in the open access journal Phytokeys.

The extensive collection mainly covers the region of Extremadura (Spain) and Portugal, although it also contains a smaller number of specimens from other places. Among these are the rest of peninsular Spain, the Baleares Islands, the Macaronesian region (Canary Islands, Madeira and Azores), the Northwest of Africa (Morocco), and Brazil. 98% of the total records are georeferenced.

Each data record in the collection has undergone a quality check by two separate procedures. The specimen records have undergone a taxonomic determination or identification as well as geo-referencing. For taxonomic identification, trusted experts were contacted with 85% of the material being identified by investigators of the Botany Area of the University of Extremadura to ensure quality and reliability.

“This paper describes the specimen-associated data set of the UNEX Herbarium, with an objective to disseminate the data contained in a data set to potential users, and promote the multiple uses of the data.”, explains Marta Espinosa, the lead author of the study.

The UNEX Herbarium is an active collection and it continues to grow. All data can be easily accessed through the GBIF data portal at http://data.gbif.org/datasets/resource/255 and http://www.eweb.unex.es/eweb/botanica/herbario/.

 

Original Source:

Espinosa M, López J (2013) Herbarium of Vascular Plants Collection of the University of Extremadura (Spain). PhytoKeys@: @–@. doi: 25: 1–13, doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.25.5341 Resource ID: GBIF key: http://gbrds.gbif.org/browse/agent?uuid=835d30de-f762-11e1-a439-00145eb45e9

 

Additional Information:

What is a Data Paper?
A Data Paper is a scholarly journal publication whose primary purpose is to describe a dataset or a group of datasets, rather than to report a research investigation.
As such, it contains facts about data, not hypotheses and arguments in support of those hypotheses based upon data, as found in a conventional research article.
Its purposes are three-fold:

• to provide a citable journal publication that brings scholarly credit to data publishers;
• to describe the data in a structured human-readable form;
• to bring the existence of the data to the attention of the scholarly community.

The plant genus Lepidiums is a small group of representatives of the economically important cabbage family Brassicaceae. Most commonly known as peppercress or peppergrass Lepidiums includes around 180 species worldwide. In a new extensive study, published in the open access journal PhytoKeys, scientists explore the diversity within the New Zealand Lepidiums oleraceum and allied species.

Lepidiums oleraceum, is known in New Zealand, as “Cook’s Scurvy Grass” because Captain James Cook, and other early explorers of that island nation, ate the plant as a scurvy preventive. Early botanists long recognised that Lepidiums oleraceum was very variable but by the time they came to seriously study this variation, the species was already extinct throughout much of its former range, making critical morphological studies difficult, and to make matters worse, without recourse to modern taxonomic methods, because past botanists had tended to describe new species and varieties.

Thus, the PhytoKeys paper, is the result of 17 years careful study of the range of variation in L. oleraceum utilising extensive field work, cultivation and genetic studies, as well as critical study of the type material held throughout the world. The end result presents the first serious revision of the New Zealand L. oleraceum “comple”‘ offered since 1899. The paper not only describes 10 new species but offers insights into their ecology and conservation status.

Scientists from New Zealand, led by Dr. Peter de Lange, Science & Capability Group, provide a full revision of 16 species, six previously recognised by other botanists but, remarkably 10 are described as new. Their work finishes a revision of the New Zealand Lepidiums species, which, aside from the species they treat in their paper includes a further four species, two of which (L. kawarau and L. sisymbrioides) are internationally significant because they are the only dioecious members of the Brassicaceae (i.e. they have both male and female plants).

Within the Lepidiums oleraceum “complex” the scientists recognise a great diversity occurring not only in New Zealand but also on many of that nation’s smaller surrounding islands and island groups. For example, the Kermadec Islands (which lie 1000 km north-east of New Zealand) support (as well as L. oleraceum) the newly described L. castellanum which is found there decorating the fortress like cliffs of the southern islands of the Kermadec group.

Lepidiums oleraceum, and many of these newly described species are believed to have once been abundant in New Zealand. All have declined as a consequence of habitat loss, loss of ecosystem functionality, through over-collection by botanists and as a consequence of the arrival of pests and diseases previously unknown in that country. The PhytoKeys paper reveals that there are now only scattered and fragmented populations left of all the species, which raises concerns about their conservation status. Indeed most of the 16 plants described in the study are already listed as “Threatened/Nationally Critical” by the New Zealand people.

The high extinction rate of these beautiful plants is exemplified by the newly described Lepidiums amissum. The epithet ‘amissum’ is derived from the Latin ”amissus” meaning ”lost” and is used here to refer to the loss though extinction, of this plant from the New Zealand flora. The description of the species was only made possible because of herbarium specimens collected between 1880 and 1817.

By global standards New Zealand is a hotspot for plant diversity with 83% of its estimated 2400 indigenous plants considered endemic. Of these plants, about one in 10 are believed to be threatened, and the numbers of threatened plants are rising. Currently though, New Zealand is lucky, just six of their endemic species are regarded as extinct. However, with the recognition of L. amissum that figure has now climbed to seven.

The PhytoKeys Lepidiums paper is seen by the authors as a critical first step toward saving New Zealand’s Lepidiums diversity. The authors are now working on a further paper looking at genetic variation within all the species, as a further step toward deciding which populations should be managed to prevent further extinctions.

Original Source:

de Lange PJ, Heenan PB, Houliston GJ, Rolfe JR, Mitchell AD (2013) New Lepidiums (Brassicaceae) from New Zealand. PhytoKeys 24: 1. doi: 10.3897/PhytoKeys.24.4375