Tag: America

Flying jewels spell death for tarantulas: Study of a North American spider fly genus

Spider flies are usually a rarely encountered group of insects, except in Western North America, where the North American jewelled spider flies (the Eulonchus genus) can be locally abundant in mountainous areas such as the Sierra Nevada of California. The brilliantly coloured adults (also known as ‘sapphires’ and ’emeralds’) are important pollinators of flowers.

The North American jewelled spider flies typically have large rounded bodies covered with dense hairs and metallic green to blue or even purple colouration, giving them a jewel-like appearance. Together, the elongated mouthparts, the metallic coloration and the eyes, covered with soft hairs, immediately set these flies apart from any other group of tarantula fly. The mouthparts are greatly elongated to help them feed on nectar from the flowers of more than 25 different plant families and 80 species.

However, their larvae are more insidious, seeking out and inserting themselves into tarantula hosts and slowly eating away their insides until they mature and burst out of the abdomen, killing the spider, and leaving behind only the skin. Once they have emerged from the host, they pupate to develop into adults.

In the present study, published in the open access journal ZooKeys, six species of the genus are recognized in North America, including one from the Smokey Mountains, and five from the West, ranging from Mexico to Canada. Drs Christopher J. Borkent and Shaun L. Winterton, and PhD student Jessica P. Gillung, all affiliated with the California State Collection of Arthropods, USA, have redescribed all of them using cybertaxonomic methods of natural language description. A phylogenetic tree of the relationships among the species is also presented.

The examined individuals include many from the collection amassed by the late Dr. Evert Schlinger (1928-2014) over the span of more than 60 years. Today, the collection resides at the California Academy of Sciences (CAS). “Dr. Evert I. Sclinger was a world renowned expert on spider fly taxonomy and biology,” write the authors in the paper, which they dedicate to the scientist and his legacy.

All of the studied flies are relatively widely distributed, and locally abundant, except for a single species (E. marialiciae), which is known from only a few specimens, collected within a small contiguous area in the Great Smoky Mountains. However, the scientists suggest that future studies are needed to explore whether this is actually their full range.

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Original source:

Borkent CJ, Gillung JP, Winterton SL (2016) Jewelled spider flies of North America: a revision and phylogeny of Eulonchus Gerstaecker (Diptera, Acroceridae). ZooKeys 619: 103-146. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.619.8249

A new species and genus of ‘horned necked’ praying mantis from a French museum collection

While studying the insect collection of the Museum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris, France, two American scientists uncovered a small, leaf-dwelling praying mantis with unique features collected from Madagascar in 2001. Its distinctive “horned neck” and flattened, cone-like eyes, as well as the location from where it was found, led the researchers to assign the insect to a new genus and species. The study is published in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

Lead author Sydney Brannoch and co-author Dr. Gavin Svenson, both of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and Case Western Reserve University, were working on a research project in their laboratory in Cleveland, Ohio, when Brannoch discovered the undescribed insect among the French collection on loan to them at the time. To determine the insect’s identity, the researchers first investigated the specimen’s locality, Tampolo, Madagascar, where it had been collected from the leaves of an unrecorded tree. When compared to other praying mantis species from this region, they found that this individual had many peculiarities that set it apart.

After comparing and analyzing specimens from various museums, the Cleveland scientists created a new genus for the praying mantis. They selected the genus name Cornucollis to reflect the horn-like projections, which extend from the insect’s neck. The team described and named the new mantis species Cornucollis masoalensis after the locality where the mantis was originally collected. It belongs to the subfamily Tropidomantinae, which is comprised of smaller, usually green mantises that appear to live on broad-leafed plants.

“Identifying a unique praying mantis hidden among other species was unexpected and exciting,” said lead author Sydney Brannoch, a Case Western Reserve University graduate student working under the direction of Dr. Gavin Svenson at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. “There are untold numbers of species new to science sitting in cabinets and cases within natural history museums around the world. Often these specimens have been overlooked, in some cases for centuries. The discovery of this new praying mantis ultimately highlights the need for continued research in museum collections.”

“Museum collections hold hidden treasures of biodiversity,” said co-author Dr. Gavin Svenson, curator of invertebrate zoology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and adjunct assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University. “A closer look can reveal species never before recognized as unique.” Dr. Svenson supported the study as part of his ongoing research to classify praying mantises based on evolutionary relationships.

The newly described leaf-dwelling mantis, Cornucollis masoalensis, measures about 24 millimeters in length, which is small for a praying mantis. It has distinctive speckled patches on its head. The new mantis is pale in color with opaque, well-developed wings. Based on external appearance, the researchers believe that this species dwells on the undersides of leaves, a unique ecological niche occupied by morphologically similar, closely related species.

The scientists suggest further field surveys could provide science with additional knowledge about the new species and genus, including the description of a female individual.

This study was done as part of Dr. Svenson’s broader research project, which is focused on the evolutionary patterns of relationship, distribution, and complex features of praying mantises. His current research project aims to align new sources of relationship evidence (DNA sequence data) with morphology and other features to create a new and accurate classification system for praying mantises that reflects true evolutionary relationships.

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Original source:

Brannoch SK, Svenson GJ (2016) A new genus and species (Cornucollis gen. n. masoalensis sp. n.) of praying mantis from northern Madagascar (Mantodea, Iridopterygidae, Tropidomantinae). ZooKeys 556: 65-81. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.556.6906

Additional information:

About The Cleveland Museum of Natural History:

The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, incorporated in 1920, is one of the finest institutions of its kind in North America. It is noted for its collections, research, educational programs and exhibits. The collections encompass more than 5 million artifacts and specimens, and research of global significance focuses on 10 natural science disciplines. The Museum conserves biological diversity through the protection of more than 7,300 acres of natural areas. It promotes health education with local programs and distance learning that extends across the globe. Its GreenCityBlueLake Institute is a center of thought and practice for the design of green and sustainable cities. Its website is: http://www.cmnh.org.

1,541 snout moth species and counting in the United States and Canada

The present snout moth list contains a ten-percent increase in the number of species since 1983. For the last thirty-three years snout moth specialists in the United States and Canada have been describing species new to science and recording species new to these two countries. Scientists have also published studies resulting in major changes to the classification above the species level, for example by studying snout moth “ears” (tympanal organs) and utilizing genes to study their relationships.

This check list was compiled over a three-year period by Dr. Brian Scholtens and Dr. M. Alma Solis. Brian Scholtens is a professor at the College of Charleston, South Carolina, and M. Alma Solis is a research entomologist at the Agriculture Research Service’s Systematic Entomology Laboratory, and curator of the U.S. National Pyraloidea Collection located at the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. Their results have been published in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

“A check list is one of the most important pieces of research, with many applications,” says Dr. Solis. “Knowing the fauna of a geographic area makes it possible to track species and, in this case, potential invasive species. The caterpillars of snout moths are economically important worldwide as pests of planted crops for food or biofuel, of forest trees, and of stored products such as wheat and nuts.”

“Many species, for example, the stored product pests, occur worldwide, but others, such as pest species of grasses including corn, can be restricted or only exist in certain geographic areas,” the scientist further explains. “It is important to be able to recognize as soon as possible that a particular species is not native to the United States or Canada.”

Scientists use Latin scientific names as “unique tags” to communicate about the morphological or molecular identity and habits of a species. One of the functions of taxonomists is to determine if a species is new or if it has already been described. Historically, confusion is created when the same species is described more than once (called a synonym) in other parts of the world.

A regional check list such as this one and a worldwide check list can work together to reinforce precision in the definition and communication about species, especially decreasing confusion about synonyms. Most worldwide check lists exist as online databases that can be updated. Dr. Solis said that they had cited new discoveries relevant to the North American snout moth fauna found in GLOBIZ, or the Global Information System on Pyraloidea, an electronic list of over 15,500 snout moth species names for which she is a collaborator.

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Original source:

Scholtens, B. & M. A. Solis. 2015. Annotated check list of the Pyraloidea (Lepidoptera) of America North of Mexico. Zookeys.535:1-1136. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.535.6086.

New snake species with pitch black eyes from the Andes highlights hidden diversity

Extremely rare and hidden in the forests of the Andes, there are still new snake species left to find. This has recently been evidenced by the colubrid serpent, described for the first time in the present article. Moreover, there is the vicious circle enwrapping its relatives: the harder it is to find more specimens, the tougher it is to describe and thus, start to identify them, which does not help in mapping their distribution and habitats. To address this issue, Dr. R. Alexander Pyron, The George Washington University, and his international research team have included a taxonomic review and discussion on the relationships and origin within a non-venomous snake tribe in a paper, published in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

Slender and small, the new species, called Synophis zaheri, measures less than 40 cm in length, or between 351 and 372 mm. Contrasting to its slim body with a distinct neck, separating the head from the body, its eyes are large and bulging, making up for more than a third of its head. Being black in colour, it is hard to tell the pupil and the iris apart. While the upper part of the body is grayish-brown with an iridescent sheen, the abdominal side stands out with its yellowish-white colouration.

Typically for the tribe, where the new species has been placed, it is also characterised with a highly modified spine and an enlarged scale row running over it. This is also where the name of this group of snakes comes from with “Diaphorolepidini” consisting of the Greek words for “differentiated” and “scales”. Not so clear, however, is the name of the genus, which the authors have translated also from Greek as “with snake”, but find themselves unaware of the meaning behind. The species is named after Dr. Hussam El-Dine Zaher, a Brazilian herpetologist whose work has been foundational for South American snakes.

In conclusion, the scientists note that the rarity of the observed snake species, especially the genus, where the new serpent belongs, accounts for the unclear species-boundaries as well as for the myriad of undescribed species. “Dipsadine diversity in the Andes is clearly underestimated, and new species are still being discovered in the 21st century,” they point out.

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Original source:

Pyron RA, Guayasamin JM, Peñafiel N, Bustamante L, Arteaga A (2015) Systematics of Nothopsini (Serpentes, Dipsadidae), with a new species of Synophis from the Pacific Andean slopes of southwestern Ecuador. ZooKeys 541: 109-147. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.541.6058

Immaculate white: New moth species preferring dry habitats is a rare case for Florida

Spreading its wings over the sandhills and scrub of peninsular Florida, a moth species with immaculately white wings has remained unnoticed by science until Mr. Terhune Dickel brought it to the attention of Dr. James Hayden of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. As a result of their research, published in the open-access journal ZooKeys, the authors have also included a key to facilitate the recognition of different pale-winged moths and their close relatives.

With its taste for much drier habitats such as the sandhills of peninsular Florida, the new species, called Antaeotricha floridella, is a noteworthy case among the moths and butterflies. This kind of endemism is, however, quite common among other groups of insects and spineless animals.

Initially confused with another very similar and widely distributed species, called Antaeotricha albulella, the herein described moth was found to be actually quite different when dissected by co-author Terhune Dickel.

After Mr. Dickel showed specimens to Dr. Hayden, they noticed that its forewings are immaculately white, unlike those of its close relatives within the pale-coloured endemics for the New World. Their wings tend to differ in colouration on a species level and are often spotted, however minute these contrasting patterns might be. While the new species has its forewings always in snow-white on the upper side and its hindwings – in pale gray, its kin, A. albulella, has either one or two black spots of black on its own forewings and white or pale-gray hindwings.

Currently, not much is known about the new moth species’ feeding habits. The evergreen sand live oak is the only plant that it has so far been confirmed to feed on. However, the researchers do not exclude the possibility that the new species could use a wider variety of oaks as hosts.

The occurrence of the moth exclusively in the dry areas of peninsular Florida fits an ecological pattern, and it is likely that more species, currently assigned under incorrect names, will be found in the state’s sandhills and scrub.

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Original source:

Hayden JE, Dickel TS (2015) A new Antaeotricha species from Florida sandhills and scrub (Lepidoptera, Depressariidae, Stenomatinae). ZooKeys 533: 133-150. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.533.6004