A new species of beetle with remarkably long genitalia that hint at a curious evolutionary “sexual arms race” has been described from Malaysian Borneo. The new insect was named after actress and biologist Isabella Rossellini in honour of her stage shows and Webby Award-winning series of films about animal reproduction, featured on SundanceTV. The species is […]
New animal species are sometimes named after celebrities because of their trademark looks. That’s how we got the blonde-haired Donald Trump moth and the big-armed Arnold Schwarzenegger fly, to name a few. However, some well-known people are enshrined in animal names not for their looks, but rather for what they do for the environment. This is exactly how a […]
Scientists estimate that 80% of the world’s animal and plant species are still unknown. Although the work of taxonomists (whose job is to describe and name those) is appreciated by the general public, funding for taxonomy is dwindling. Moreover, while the areas hosting most of the unknown biodiversity are under threat, time is running out. […]
In a follow-up to a recent special issue, 8 research articles outline a set of verified guidelines for the monitoring of 5 saproxylic beetle species listed in the Habitats Directive In a set of eight research publications, scientists tested various methods for the monitoring of five European saproxylic (i.e. dependent on dead wood) beetle species […]
A collection of thirteen research papers has been published to address the conservation of saproxylic beetles and other insects listed in the Habitats Directive With biodiversity loss well underway, conservation measures are urgent on a global scale and the European Union is no exception. However, for efficient strategies and actions to be put in place, […]
The discovery of a new subspecies of longhorn beetle from Scandinavia triggered a discussion on the vague organism classification rank ‘subspecies’. As a result, a newly proposed definition of subspecies has been published along with the description of the taxon in the open access journal ZooKeys by the research team of Henrik Wallin and Johannes Bergsten from […]
An outstanding monograph of the Australopacific Region’s saprinine hister beetles supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Amid his ongoing revisionary work on a number of hister beetle genera, the Slovakian-born naturalised Dutch entomologist and Alexander von Humboldt Foundation researcher, Dr. Tomáš Lackner, Bavarian State Collection of Zoology, together with fellow entomologist Dr. Richard Leschen, Landcare Research, discovered two […]
With as many as 120 recently discovered weevils placed in the genus Laparocerus, it now hosts a total of 237 known species and subspecies. They are all flightless beetles and most of them endemic (living exclusively in one geographic location) to a single island of the archipelagos of Madeira, Selvagens and the Canary Islands (17 […]
While new species are most commonly described based on recent field collections, undertaken at poorly explored places, some are identified in museum collections, where they have spent decades before being recognised as new to science. Such is the case of an unusually large and likely extinct ground beetle found at the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, […]
Fossilised forewings from two individuals, discovered on the Beardmore Glacier, revealed the first ground beetle known from the southernmost continent. It is also the second beetle for the Antarctic insect fauna with living descendants. The new species, which for now is also the sole representative of a new genus, is to be commonly known as […]