From science to literature: New arachnid taxa named after Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda

A taxonomic revision describes 22 new species, with two of the names honoring prominent figures of Chilean culture.

Guest blog post by Willians Porto and Abel Pérez González

The third-largest group of arachnids, in terms of number of known species, is the harvestmen, with nearly 7,000 described species, ranking just behind spiders and mites. Despite this number, a considerable portion of their diversity is unknown, and many species still remain undescribed.

An individual of Fresiax spinulosa in a natural setting.
Fresiax spinulosa. Photo by Abel Pérez-González

The harvestmen of the family Triaenonychidae comprise 404 known species and have a peculiar distribution. They are found in temperate regions of the southern hemisphere, with representatives in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Madagascar, and southern South America— a typical temperate Gondwana distribution. In the America continent, the diversity is concentrated in the Southern Cone of South America, mainly in the Chilean Valdivian Forest, where 26 species were previously recorded.

In our latest work published in ZooKeys, we present the result of a taxonomic and systematic revision of the South American triaenonychids previously included in the mainly New Zealand genus Nuncia. After examining hundreds of specimens, we redescribed all the four previously known species and described 22 new ones. All these species were included in six genera─one resurrected and five new to science─regarding the genus Nuncia as exclusively to New Zealand.  The new systematic arrangement was supported by a comprehensive new phylogenetic analysis based on molecular (UCE + Sanger) data.

An individual of Laftrachia robin in a natural environment.
Laftrachia robin, one of the new species described in the study. Photo by Abel Pérez-González

The proposed phylogenetic hypothesis reveals the relationships between South American Triaenonychidae and their counterparts from the rest of the world, indicating that the diversity of triaenonychids in the Southern Cone is polyphyletic, reflecting an ancient diversification predating the Gondwana breakup.

A brown spider in a natural environment.
A species of the newly described Nerudiella genus. Photo by Abel Pérez-González
A bust of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda.
A bust of Pablo Neruda. Photo by Wally Gobetz under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license

Our work represents the most comprehensive contribution to the taxonomy and systematic of South American triaenonychids, almost doubling the number of previously known species. For naming the new taxa, we select names derived from geography, historical figures, and recognized intellectuals. Since most of the newly discovered fauna is distributed across various regions of Chile, the authors decided to honor two prominent figures of Chilean literature. The poet Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957), Nobel laureate in literature in 1945, was honored with the new genus Mistralia, and Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), Nobel laureate in literature in 1971, was honored with the new genus Nerudiella. In addition to tributes to globally renowned Chilean poets, the new species also include dedications to members of the arachnological scientific community and researchers who collaborated on this work.

The taxonomic revision includes hundreds of images that are extremely important for species identification. These images consist of various optical microscopy, stereomicroscopy, and numerous scanning electron microscopy micrographs.

Scanning electron microscope image showing detailed views of the male genitalia of Mistralia verrucosa.
Scanning electron microscope image showing various detailed views of the male genitalia of Mistralia verrucosa.

This work is one of the products of years of collaboration between the Arachnology Division of the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales Bernardino Rivadavia (MACN) and the Giribet Lab in Harvard University and Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ). It also represents a continuation of the collaboration initiated in the 20th century by the late Argentinean arachnologist Emilio Maury (MACN) with the Chilean zoologist Tomás Nicolás Cekalovic (Museo de Zoología de la Universidad de Concepción) and the American Museum of Natural History.

Research article:

Porto W, Derkarabetian S, Giribet G, Pérez-González A (2024) Systematic revision of the South American “Nuncia” (Opiliones, Laniatores, Triaenonychidae). ZooKeys 1207: 1-149. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1207.120068

Smithsonian’s Dr Torsten Dikow appointed Editor-in-Chief of ZooKeys

Dikow, an esteemed entomologist specialising in Diptera and cybertaxonomy, is the new Editor-in-Chief of the leading scholarly journal in systematic zoology and biodiversity

Esteemed entomologist specialising in true flies (order Diptera) and cybertaxonomy, Dr Torsten Dikow was appointed as the new Editor-in-Chief of the leading open-access peer-reviewed journal in systematic zoology and biodiversity ZooKeys.

Dikow is to step into the shoes of globally celebrated fellow entomologist and colleague at the Smithsonian and founding Editor-in-Chief of ZooKeys Dr Terry Erwin, who sadly passed away in May, 2020, leaving behind hefty scientific legacy and immeasurable admiration and fond memories

Today, Dikow is a Research Entomologist and Curator of Diptera and Aquatic Insects at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (Washington, DC, USA), where his research interests encompass the diversity and evolutionary history of the superfamily Asiloidea – or asiloid flies – comprising curious insect groups, such as the assassin flies / robber flies and the mydas flies. Amongst an extensive list of research publications, Dikow’s studies on the diversity, biology, distribution and systematics of asiloid flies include the description of 60 species of assassin flies alone, and the redescription of even more through comprehensive taxonomic revisions.

Dikow obtained his M.S. in Zoology from the Universität Rostock (Germany) and Ph.D. in Entomology from Cornell University (New York, USA) with three years of dissertation research conducted at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). 

During his years as a postdoc at the Field Museum (Illinois, USA), Dikow was earnestly involved in the broader activities of the Encyclopedia of Life through its Biodiversity Synthesis Center (BioSynC) and the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL). There, he would personally establish contacts with smaller natural history museums and scientific societies, and encourage them to grant digitisation permissions to the BHL for in-copyright scientific publications. Dikow is a champion of cybertaxonomic tools and making biodiversity data accessible from both natural history collections and publications. He has been named a Biodiversity Open Data Ambassador by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF).

Dikow is no stranger to ZooKeys and other journals published by the open-access scientific publisher and technology provider Pensoft. For the past 10 years, he has been amongst the most active editors and a regular author and reviewer at ZooKeysBiodiversity Data Journal and African Invertebrates.

“Publishing taxonomic revisions and species descriptions in an open-access, innovative journal to make data digitally accessible is one way we taxonomists can and need to add to the biodiversity knowledge base. ZooKeys has been a journal in support of this goal since day one. I am excited to lend my expertise and enthusiasm to further this goal and continue the development to publish foundational biodiversity research, species discoveries, and much more in the zoological field,”

said Dikow.

Dikow took on his new role at ZooKeys at a time when the journal had just turned 15 years on the scholarly publishing scene. In late 2020, the scientific outlet also marked the publication of its 1000th journal volume.

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Visit the journal’s website and follow ZooKeys on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook. You can also follow Torsten Dikow on X.

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About ZooKeys:

ZooKeys is a peer-reviewed, open-access, rapidly disseminated journal launched to accelerate research and free information exchange in taxonomy, phylogeny, biogeography and evolution of animals. ZooKeys aims to apply the latest trends and methodologies in publishing and preservation of digital materials to meet the highest possible standards of the cybertaxonomy era.

ZooKeys publishes papers in systematic zoology containing taxonomic/faunistic data on any taxon of any geological age from any part of the world with no limit to manuscript size. To respond to the current trends in linking biodiversity information and synthesising the knowledge through technology advancements, ZooKeys also publishes papers across other taxon-based disciplines, such as ecology, molecular biology, genomics, evolutionary biology, palaeontology, behavioural science, bioinformatics, etc. 

Curious and cryptic: new leaf insects discovered

Research team describes seven new species of walking leaves in ZooKeys

An international research team including the University of Göttingen has described seven previously unknown species of leaf insects, also known as walking leaves. The insects belong to the stick and leaf insect order, which are known for their unusual appearance: they look confusingly similar to parts of plants such as twigs, bark or – in the case of leaf insects – leaves.

An adult female of Pulchriphyllium anangu, one of the newly described species, observed July 2016 at Kadumane Estate, India by iNaturalist user @ashwinv (Ashwin Viswanathan) https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/29374627)

This sophisticated camouflage provides excellent protection from predators as well as presenting a challenge to researchers. Genetic analysis enabled the researchers to discover “cryptic species”, which cannot be distinguished by their external appearance alone. The findings are not only important for the systematic study of leaf insects, but also for the protection of their diversity. The results were published in the scientific journal ZooKeys.

Taxonomy – meaning the naming, description and classification of species – is difficult in the case of leaf insects: individuals of different species can be difficult to tell apart, yet there can be huge variations within a species. “Individuals of different species are often counted as belonging to the same species based on their appearance. We were only able to identify some of the new species by their genetic characteristics,” explains the Project Lead, Dr Sarah Bank-Aubin, Göttingen University’s Animal Evolution and Biodiversity Department.

An adult female of Pulchriphyllium crurifolium, observed September 2019 at Sans Souci, Mahé, Seychelles, by Juan Jose Areso uploaded by iNaturalist user @liahg (Amalia Herrera Grau) (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/76082181)

Some individual insects from India were previously thought to belong to a species that is widespread in Southeast Asia. But now the researchers have found out that they are a completely new species of leaf insects. Bank-Aubin emphasises: “The finding is important for species conservation: if all the individuals die out in India, it is not just a group within a species that is reduced, as was previously thought. In fact, a whole distinct species is being wiped out. This means that the Indian species is particularly important to protect.” Other newly discovered species come from Vietnam, Borneo, Java and the Philippines.

Three of the newly discovered leaf insect species. Left to right: A female of Phyllium ortizi, an adult male of Pulchriphyllium anangu observed November 2019 in Pakkalakunja, Karnataka, India by iNaturalist user @sanath_ramesh_manimoole (Sanath R M) (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/103401996), and a female of Pulchriphyllium bhaskarai.

The researchers from Göttingen University worked with leaf insect expert Royce Cumming, City University New York. This research collaboration has led to the identification of over twenty new species. Dr Sven Bradler, who has been researching the evolution of stick and leaf insects at the University of Göttingen for more than 20 years, explains: “There are around 3,500 known species of stick and leaf insects and there are currently just over 100 described species of leaf insect. Although they only make up a small fraction of this diverse family of insects, their spectacular and unexpected appearance makes them unique.”

Research article:

Cumming RT, Le Tirant S, Linde JB, Solan ME, Foley EM, Eulin NEC, Lavado R, Whiting MF, Bradler S, Bank S (2023) On seven undescribed leaf insect species revealed within the recent “Tree of Leaves” (Phasmatodea, Phylliidae). ZooKeys 1173: 145-229. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1173.104413

Press release originally published by the University of Göttingen. Republished with permission.

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This October, TDWG 2023 is coming up to Tasmania & online

As in previous years, the abstracts – already getting published in the BISS journal – are giving a sneak peek of the event!

The annual TDWG conference will be taking place 9-13 October in Tasmania, Australia. Once again, the event will be running in a hybrid format. 

This year, the TDWG conference is hosted by Atlas of Living Australia – the Australian node of GBIF – the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and the National Research Collections Australia.

For an eighth year in a row, all conference abstracts will be submitted to TDWG via the Association’s own journal: Biodiversity Information Science and Standards (BISS Journal), published by Pensoft and powered by the end-to-end publishing platform ARPHA. Using the ‘mini-paper’ format, participants are not only openly and efficiently sharing their work with the world, but they also get to enjoy many features typically exclusive to ‘standard’ research papers, including DOI registration on Crossref, semantic enrichment and structural elements (e.g., tables, figures), all of which are stored as easily exported data.

Apart from an abstract submission portal, BISS Journal also serves as a permanent, openly accessible scholarly source for all contributions concerning the creation, maintenance, and promotion of open community-driven data standards to enable sharing and use of biodiversity data for all.

Learn more about the unique features of BISS and explore past TDWG abstract collections compiled for TDWG’s previous conferences. 

As in previous years, the abstracts will be published ahead of the event itself to provide the community with a sneak preview of the conference. The 2023 collection of abstracts, will allow readers to explore the abstracts by session (e.g., symposia, posters, contributed presentations, keynotes). Sometime after the conference, check out the media tab on most abstracts for slides presented and a link to session video when it is posted on TDWG’s YouTube channel.

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Visit the TDWG 2023 conference website for more information about the scientific program, registration, abstract submission and more. Ahead, during and after the conference, join the conversation on Twitter and Mastodon via #tdwg2023.

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Don’t forget to also follow TDWG (Twitter, Facebook and Mastodon), BISS Journal (Twitter and Facebook) and Pensoft (Twitter and Facebook) on social media.

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Can’t wait until TDWG 2023? Use the time to relive last year’s TDWG 2022 in this blog post and view the TDWG 2022: The Aftermovie.

🥳 Here goes THE title in our New Species Showdown!

From the kingdom of plants, welcome the all-time crowd-favourite species ever described in a Pensoft journal!

Which one is the species that springs to mind when you think about the most awesome discoveries in recent times?

In an age where we more than ever need to appreciate and preserve the magnificent biodiversity inhabiting the Earth, we decided to go for a lighter and fun take on the work of taxonomists that often goes unnoticed by the public. 

From the ocean depths surrounding Indonesia to the foliage of the native forests of Príncipe Island and into the soils of Borneo, we started with 16 species described as new to science in journals published by Pensoft over the years. 

Out of these most amazing creatures, over the past several weeks we sought to find who’s got the greatest fandom by holding a poll on Twitter (you can follow it further down here or via #NewSpeciesShowdown).

Grand Finale – here comes the champion!

Truly, we couldn’t have a more epic final!

The two competitors come from two kingdoms, two opposite sides of the globe, and the “pages” of two journals, namely PhytoKeys and Evolutionary Systematics.

While we need to admit that we ourselves expected to crown an animal as the crowd-favourite, we take the opportunity to congratulate the botanists amongst our fans for the well-deserved win of Nepenthes pudica (see the species description)!

Find more about the curious one-of-a-kind pitcher plant in this blog post, where we announced its discovery following the new species description in PhytoKeys in June 2022:

Back then, N. pudica gave a good sign about its worldwide web appeal, when it broke the all-time record for online popularity in a competition with all plant species described in PhytoKeys over the journal’s 22-year history of taxonomic papers comrpising over 200 issues.

What’s perhaps even more curious, is that there is only one species EVER described in a Pensoft-published journal that has so far triggered more tweets than the pitcher plant, and that species is the animal that has ended up in second place in the New Species Showdown: a tiny amphibian living in Peru, commonly known as the the Amazon Tapir Frog (Synapturanus danta). Which brings us once again to the influence of botanists in taxonomic research.

Read more about its discovery in the blog post from February 2022:

Another thing that struck us during the tournament was that there was only one species described in our flagship journal in systematic journal ZooKeys: the supergiant isopod Bathynomus raksasa, that managed to fight its way to the semi-finals, where it lost against S. danta.

This makes us especially proud with our diverse and competitive journal portfolio full of titles dedicated to biodiversity and taxonomic research!

The rules

Twice a week, @Pensoft would announce a match between two competing species on Twitter using the hashtag #NewSpeciesShowdown, where everyone could vote in the poll for their favourie.

Disclaimer

This competition is for entertainment purposes only. As it was tremendously tough to narrow the list down to only sixteen species, we admit that we left out a lot of spectacular creatures.

To ensure fairness and transparency, we made the selection based on the yearly Altmetric data, which covers articles in our journals published from 2010 onwards and ranks the publications according to their online mentions from across the Web, including news media, blogs and social networks. 

We did our best to diversify the list as much as possible in terms of taxonomic groups. However, due to the visual-centric nature of social media, we gave preference to immediately attractive species.

All battles:

(in chronological order)

Round 1
The first tie of the New Species Showdown was between the olinguito: Bassaricyon neblina (see species description) and the “snow-coated” tussock moth Ivela yini (see species description).
In the second battle, we faced two marine species discovered in the Indian Ocean and described in ZooKeys. The supergiant isopod B. raksasa (see species description) won against the Rose Fariy Wrasse C. finifenmaa (see species description) with strong 75%.
In the third battle, we faced two frog species: the tapir ‘chocolate’ frog described in Evolutionary Systematics (see species description) winning against the ‘glass frog’ described in Zookeys (see species description) with 73%.
With 62% of the votes, the two-species tournament saw the Harryplax severus crab grab the win against another species named after a great wizard from the Harry Potter universe: the Salazar’s pit viper, which was described in the journal Zoosystematics and Evolution in 2020. The “unusual” crustacean was described back in 2017 in ZooKeys. As its species characters matched no genus known to date, the species also established the Harryplax genus.
With the fifth battle in the New Species Showdown taking us to the Kingdom of Plants, we enjoyed a great battle between the first pitcher plant found to grow its pitchers underground to dine (see the full study) and the Demon’s orchid, described in 2016 from a single population spread across a dwarf montane forest in southern Colombia (read the study). Both species made the headlines across the news media around the world following their descriptions in our flagship botany journal PhytoKeys.
Next, we saw the primitive dipluran Haplocampa wagnelli (read its species description in Subterranean Biology) – a likely survivor of the Ice Age thanks to the caves of Canada – win the public in a duel against Xuedytes bellus (described in ZooKeys in 2017), also known as the Most cave-adapted trechine beetle in the world!
We had a close battle between the Principe Scops-owl Otus bikegila (see species description published in our ZooKeys earlier in 2022) and the blue-tailed Monitor lizard Varanus semotus (also first ‘known’ from the pages of ZooKeys, 2016). Being adorable species, but also ‘castaways’ on isolated islands in the Atlantic, they made great sensations upon their discovery. In fact, the reptile won with a single vote!
In the last battle of Round 1, the ‘horned’ tarantula C. attonitifer claimed the victory with a strong (80%) advantage from its competitor with a rebel name: the freshwater crayfish C. snowden (species description in ZooKeys from 2015). Described in African Invertebrates in 2019, the arachnid might be one amongst many ‘horned’ baboon spiders, yet there was something quite extraordinary about its odd protuberance. Furthermore, it came to demonstrate how little we know about the fauna of Angola:  a largely underexplored country located at the intersection of several ecoregions.
Round 2 – Quarter-finals
In the first quarter-final round, in the close battle, the isopod ’emerged’ from the ocean depths of Indonesia B. raksasa (species description in Zookeys from 2020) claimed the victory with just a few votes difference (58%!) from its competitor: lovely olinguito B. neblina, also described in Zookeys but back in 2013.
In the second round of the quarter-final, the tapir ‘chocolate’ frog S. danta (described in Evolutionary Systematics this year) claimed the victory with a significant advantage (69%) over its competitor crab H. severus described in Zookeys in 2017.
The third battle in Round 2 secured a place at the semi-finals for the only plant to get this far in the New Species Showdown. If you are dedicated to the mission of proving the plant kingdom superior: keep supporting Nepenthes pudica in the semi-finals and beyond!
In the meantime, read the full description of the species, published in our PhytoKeys in June.
The last quarter-final send the Angolan ‘horned’ tarantula to the next round. Described in African Invertebrates in 2019, its discovery would have likely remained a secret had it not been for the local tribes who provided the research team with crucial information about the curious arachnid.
Round 3 – Semi-finals
Curiously enough, by winning against the ‘supergiant’ isopod B. raksasa – also known around the Internet as the ‘Darth Vader of the seas’ – the Amazonian anuran S. danta outcompetes the last species in the New Species Showdown representing our flagship taxonomy journal: ZooKeys.

The charming anuran was described in February 2022 in Evolutionary Systematics, a journal dedicated to whole-organism biology that we publish on behalf of the Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change (LIB).
In a dramatic turn of events, the tight match between the Angolan tarantula C. attonitifer , whose ‘horn’ protruding from its back surprised the scientists because of its unique structure and soft texture, and the first pitcher plant whose ‘traps’ can be found underground in Borneo, ended up with the news that the New Species Showdown will be concluding with a battle between the kingdoms Animalia and Plantae! What a denouement!

The record-breaking plant was described in June 2022 in PhytoKeys: a journal launched by Pensoft in 2010 with the mission to introduce fast, linked and open publishing to plant taxonomy.
THE FINAL
And here we were at the finish line.
But why did we hold the tournament right now?

If you have gone to the Pensoft website at any point in 2022, visited our booth at a conference, or received a newsletter from any of our journals, by this time, you must be well aware that in 2022 – more precisely, on 25 December – we turned 30. And we weren’t afraid to show it!

Pensoft’s team happy to showcase the 30-year story of the company at various events this year.
Left: Maria Kolesnikova at the annual Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG 2022) conference, hosted by Pensoft in Sofia, Bulgaria. Right: Iva Boyadzhieva at the XXVI International Congress of Entomology (ICE 2022) in Helsinki, Finland.

Indeed, 30 is not that big of a number, as many of us adult humans can confirm. Yet, we take pride in reminiscing about what we’ve done over the last three decades. 

The truth is, 30 years ago, we wouldn’t have been able to picture this day, let alone think that we’d be sharing it with all of you: our journal readers, authors, editors and reviewers, collaborators in innovation, project partners, and advisors. 

Long story short, we wanted to do something special and fun to wrap up our anniversary year. While we have been active in various areas, including development of publishing technology concerning open and FAIR access and linkage for research outcomes and underlying data; and multiple EU-supported scientific projects, we have always been associated with our biodiversity journal portfolio.

Besides, who doesn’t like to learn about the latest curious creature that has evaded scientific discovery throughout human history up until our days? 😉

Now, follow the #NewSpeciesShowdown to join the contest!

🎉Celebration time: here’s to 1,000 issues of ZooKeys!

With the 1,000th ZooKeys issue now hot off the press, the time has come to celebrate the millennium of Pensoft’s very first scientific journal: ZooKeys!

With the 1,000th ZooKeys issue now hot off the press, the time has come to celebrate the millennium of Pensoft’s very first scientific journal: ZooKeys!

In fact, the cause for celebration is two-fold: this year, it’s also the 10th anniversary of ZooKeys’ very special 50th issue, which marked a new era for biodiversity data publishing by introducing several innovative workflows and tools. This is when ZooKeys became an example to follow globally: a title the journal still takes pride to be holding to this day.

Articles published in ZooKeys since the journal’s launch in 2008 (data from 3/12/2020).

Today, we shall reminisce about everything along the way: from that sunny Californian morning at the Entomological Society of America meeting in 2007, where the idea about a new-age taxonomic journal in zoology sprang up in a breakfast chat between renowned entomologists and future founders of ZooKeys: Prof Lyubomir Penev and Dr Terry Erwin, to this very moment, where we’re counting over 5,500 published articles, authored by more than 8,000 researchers from 144 countries and comprising ~150,000 pages. Thus, we saw the description of one supertribe, seven tribes, five subtribes, 27 families, over 800 genera and more than 12,000 species previously unknown to science. In this journey, ZooKeys climbed up the ladder of academic rigour and trustability to become today’s most prolific open-access journal of zoology.

Even though today is the time to feel exalted and look back on our achievements and conquered milestones with ear-to-ear smiles, it is with heavy hearts that we’ll be raising our glasses tonight, as we won’t be joined by our beloved friend and founding Editor-in-Chief, Dr Terry Erwin, whom we lost on 11th May 2020. While his place in our hearts and ZooKeys’ Editorial board will never be filled, we accept our duty to help for his legacy to persist for the future generations of scientists by taking a vow to never lower our standards or cease to improve our services and care for our readers, authors, reviewers and editors alike. 

In honour of Terry, who will be remembered for his splendid personality and zealous enthusiasm for carabid beetles and the world’s immense biodiversity, we’ve opened up a special memorial volume to be published on 11th May 2021.

In fact, we have thousands of people to thank for the place ZooKeys is at right now: these are our authors, who have trusted us with their research work time and time again; our reviewers and editors, who have taken their invaluable time to promptly process submitted manuscripts; and, of course, our readers, who are using ZooKeys content to expand the world’s knowledge, either by learning and building on the findings in their own research, or by spreading the knowledge to those who will.

With a thought for our authors & readers

We’ve been striving to implement the latest and most convenient scholarly publishing technologies and innovations, and also develop some of our own to make sure that ZooKeys users enjoy their experience with our flagship journal. 

In hindsight, ZooKeys was the first journal to pioneer a lot of scholarly publishing technologies, which back in the time were quite revolutionary. Notable examples from 2008-2016 include: 

Yet, this was only the beginning. Fast forward to December 2020, we’re working even harder to build up on our achievements and evolve, so that we stay on top of our game and the scholarly publishing scene. Here are the key innovations we recently implemented in ZooKeys:

With a thought for our editors

Besides revolutionising research publishing, at Pensoft, we’re also deeply devoted to facilitating our editors in their day-to-day editorial work, as well as their long-term engagement with the journal and its progress. 

Recently, we expanded journal performance reporting services, in order to keep our editors on track with the most recent trends in their journal’s performance. Meanwhile, we’ve also taken care after the continuous improvement in those stats by implementing several features meant to facilitate and expedite the handling of manuscripts.

Follow ARPHA’s blog to keep up with the new features available to users of Pensoft’s journals and all journals hosted on ARPHA Platform.  

With a thought for the community

Naturally, research outputs are only as valuable to publish as they are valuable to the community: within and beyond academia. Ultimately, their merit is best measured by citations and readership. This is why, we shall now have a look back at the most impactful papers published in ZooKeys to date.

Author’s delight

Thanks to the indexation of ZooKeys in the research citation database of Dimensions, following the collaboration between ARPHA and Digital Science, which started in 2018, we’re now able to explore the all-time most cited publications in our flagship journal. Detailed information and links to the papers where each of those studies has been cited is available on the webpage of the article.

  1. Supporting Red List threat assessments with GeoCAT: geospatial conservation assessment tool (DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.150.2109)
  2. Family-group names in Coleoptera (Insecta) (DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.88.807)
  3. Amendment of Articles 8, 9, 10, 21 and 78 of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature to expand and refine methods of publication (DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.219.3944)  
  4. Forty years of carabid beetle research in Europe – from taxonomy, biology, ecology and population studies to bioindication, habitat assessment and conservation (DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.100.1523
  5. Useful model organisms, indicators, or both? Ground beetles (Coleoptera, Carabidae) reflecting environmental conditions (DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.100.1533

Reader’s delight

Thanks to ARPHA Platform’s all-roundedness and transparency, we get to explore the most read papers ever published in ZooKeys straight from the Articles section on the journal’s website.

  1. Taxonomic revision of the olingos (Bassaricyon), with description of a new species, the Olinguito (DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.324.5827)

In 2013, ZooKeys had the honour to announce the first carnivore found in the Western Hemisphere in over three decades. Further, that wasn’t ANY carnivore, but the olinguito, which National Geographic rightfully called a “fuzzy fog-dweller with a face like a teddy bear”.

  1. An extraordinary new family of spiders from caves in the Pacific Northwest (Araneae, Trogloraptoridae) (DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.215.3547)

A year prior to the description of the olinguito, a brand new family of “cave robbing” spiders emerged from the pages of ZooKeys, after US scientists found a previously unknown to science spider with “unique, toothed claws at the end of each leg” in Oregon.

  1. Family-Group Names In Coleoptera (Insecta) (DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.88.807)

A huge, first-of-its-kind catalogue containing data on all family-group names for all known extant and fossil beetles (order Coleoptera) was published in ZooKeys in an exemplary research collaboration, spanning three continents in 2011.

  1. Review of Neopalpa Povolný, 1998 with description of a new species from California and Baja California, Mexico (Lepidoptera, Gelechiidae) (DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.646.11411)

In a truly world-wide sensation, a new species of tiny moth inhabiting a narrow stretch of extremely fragile habitat running between the USA and Mexico, was named after then President-elect Donald Trump in a desperate call to protect this and other similarly vulnerable ecosystems in North America. The species currently goes by the name Neopalpa donaldtrumpi.

  1. Taxonomic revision of the tarantula genus Aphonopelma Pocock, 1901 (Araneae, Mygalomorphae, Theraphosidae) within the United States (DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.560.6264)

In 2016, US scientists described a total of 14 new to science tarantula species from what many would think to be one the best-researched countries: the United States of America. Curiously enough, one of those tarantula species, found in California near Folsom Prison – a place best known from Cash’s song “Folsom Prison Blues”, was aptly named Aphonopelma johnnycashi.  

Public’s delight

As visionaries, we’ve long realised that scientific impact goes beyond citations and journal subscribers. Communicating science to the community beyond academia is, in fact, one of the strongest components in research dissemination, as it lets the laypeople make sense of the wider world and where exactly they stand in the bigger picture. This is why we’ve been putting that special extra effort to promote research published in our journals–including ZooKeys–using press releases, blog posts and social media content (follow ZooKeys on Twitter and Facebook).

Data source: Altmetric.

Thanks to our partnership with Altmetric, we’re able to identify the top five most popular papers from ZooKeys for all times. These are the ones that have sparkled the most online discussions via social media, big news headlines, blog posts, Wikipedia and more.

  1. Review of Neopalpa Povolný, 1998 with description of a new species from California and Baja California, Mexico (Lepidoptera, Gelechiidae) (DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.646.11411)

Not only was the previously undescribed species of moth subject to a serious threat of extinction, having been exclusively known from a fragmented area along the Mexico–United States border, but the insect’s “hairstyle” was pointed out to bear a striking resemblance to the golden locks of the 45th U.S. President Donald Trump.

Credit: CNN (read the full news story here)
  1. Geology and paleontology of the Upper Cretaceous Kem Kem Group of eastern Morocco (DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.928.47517)

Published in ZooKeys earlier this year, this extensive geology and paleontology monograph presents an unprecedented in its volume and scientific value account of a large portion of the most important prehistoric vertebrate fossils ever unearthed from the famous Kem Kem beds in Morocco. “A monograph larger than Paralititan,” as a Reddit user justly pointed out.

  1. Taxonomic revision of the tarantula genus Aphonopelma Pocock, 1901 (Araneae, Mygalomorphae, Theraphosidae) within the United States (DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.560.6264)

On top of taking pride in becoming the discoverer of as many as 14 tarantula species living “right under our noses” in the US, Dr Chris Hamilton enjoyed the spotlight of Live television in his appearance on Sky News. So did a lucky specimen of the newly described species: Aphonopelma johnnycashi! Suffice it to say, the tarantula was named after the legendary American singer-songwriter for all the right reasons.

Credit: Sky News (read the full news story here)
  1. Colobopsis explodens sp. n., model species for studies on “exploding ants” (Hymenoptera, Formicidae), with biological notes and first illustrations of males of the Colobopsis cylindrica group (DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.751.22661)

Apparently, ants that rip their bodies apart in a self-sacrificial attempt to save their colonies from enemies, weren’t something new by the time PhD student Alice Laciny and her team described the new to science species Colobopsis explodens from Brunei. However, the study published in ZooKeys in 2018 was the first to conduct and film experiments on the peculiar exploding behaviour. Although not the very first for science, C. explodens was the first “T-ant-T” species to be described since 1935.

  1. Mapping the expansion of coyotes (Canis latrans) across North and Central America (DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.759.15149)

Today, coyotes live all around North America: from Alaska to Panama, California to Maine. Once upon a time, or rather, between the Holocene and the early 1900s, their range used to be restricted to the arid west of North America. So, how did the coyotes turn up at the doorstep of South America? North Carolina scientists reached to natural history collections to map the historic colonisation of the coyotes all the way to our days.

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In our final remarks on this special occasion, it’s the time to say a special Thank you! to our most prolific authors:

  1. Dr Shuqiang Li, expert on spider taxonomy and systematics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who’s also a reviewer and a subject editor at ZooKeys (64 publications).
  2. Dr Michael S. Engel, paleontologist and entomologist at the University of Kansas and the American Museum of Natural History, who is also amongst the top five most active reviewers and the three most active subject editors in ZooKeys (59 publications).
  3. Dr Li-Zhen Li, coleopterist at Shanghai Normal University (57 publications).
  4. Dr Reginald Webster, coleopterist at Natural Resources Canada and a reviewer at ZooKeys (57 publications).
  5. Dr Sergei Golovatch, myriapodologist at the Russian Academy of Sciences, and a reviewer and a subject editor at ZooKeys (53 publications).

As well as to our most active reviewers:

  1. Dr Yuri Marusik, arachnologist at the Russian Academy of Sciences and the University of Free State, Magadan, South Africa. He is also a subject editor at ZooKeys.
  2. Dr Donald Lafontaine, entomologist at the Canadian National Collection of Insects, Arachnids, and Nematodes and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. He is also a subject editor at ZooKeys
  3. Dr Ivan H. Tuf, ecologist at Palacký University (Czech Republic) and a subject editor at ZooKeys.
  4. Dr Viatcheslav Ivanenko, taxonomist at the Lomonosov Moscow State University.
  5. Dr Michael S. Engel, paleontologist and entomologist at the University of Kansas and the American Museum of Natural History, and also one of the most productive authors and most active subject editors at ZooKeys.

And ZooKeysmost active editors:

  1. Prof Pavel Stoev, taxonomist, ecologist, and director at the National Natural History Museum (Bulgaria), and managing editor at ZooKeys.
  2. Prof Lyubomir Penev, entomologist, ecologist at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and founder of ZooKeys.
  3. Dr Michael S. Engel, paleontologist and entomologist at the University of Kansas and the American Museum of Natural History, and also one of the most productive authors and most active reviewers at ZooKeys.
  4. Dr Nina Bogutskaya, hydrobiologist and ichthyologist at the Museum of Natural History Vienna, and also a reviewer at ZooKeys.
  5. Dr Jeremy Miller, taxonomist and arachnologist at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center (Netherlands), and also a reviewer at ZooKeys.

Looking forward to sharing with you our next milestones and celebrations!

Meanwhile, make sure to follow ZooKeys on Twitter and Facebook to stay in touch!

Special ZooKeys memorial volume open to submissions to commemorate our admirable founding Editor-in-Chief Terry Erwin

In recognition of the love and devotion that Terry expressed for the study of the World’s biodiversity, ZooKeys invites contributions to this memorial issue, covering all subjects falling within the area of systematic zoology. Titled “Systematic Zoology and Biodiversity Science: A tribute to Terry Erwin (1940-2020)”.

In tribute to our beloved friend and founding Editor-in-Chief, Dr Terry Erwin, who passed away on 11th May 2020, we are planning a special memorial volume to be published on 11 May 2021, the date Terry left us. Terry will be remembered by all who knew him for his radiant spirit, charming enthusiasm for carabid beetles and never-ceasing exploration of the world of biodiversity! 

In recognition of the love and devotion that Terry expressed for study of the World’s biodiversity, ZooKeys invites contributions to this memorial issue, titled “Systematic Zoology and Biodiversity Science: A tribute to Terry Erwin (1940-2020)”, to all subjects falling within the area of systematic zoology. Of special interest are papers recognising Terry’s dedication to collection based research, massive biodiversity  surveys and origin of biodiversity hot spot areas. The Special will be edited by John Spence, Achille Casale, Thorsten Assmann, James Liebherr and Lyubomir Penev.

Article processing charges (APCs) will be waived for: (1) Contributions to systematic biology and diversity of carabid beetles, (2) Contributions from Terry’s students and (3) Contributions from his colleagues from the Smithsonian Institution. The APC for articles which do not fall in the above categories will be discounted at 30%.

The submission deadline is 31st December 2020.

Contributors are also invited to send memories and photos which shall be published in a special addendum to the volume.

The memorial volume will also include a joint project of Plazi, Pensoft and the Biodiversity Literature Repository aimed at extracting of taxonomic data from Terry Erwin’s publications and making it easily accessible to the scientific community.

Latest results of myriapod research from the 18th International Congress of Myriapodology

Last year, the 18th International Congress of Myriapodology brought together 92 of the world’s top experts on the curious, yet still largely unknown multi-legged centipedes, millipedes, pauropods, symphylans (collectively referred to as myriapods) and velvet worms (onychophorans).

Held between 25th and 31st August 2019 at the Hungarian Natural History Museum in Budapest and co-organised by the Hungarian Biological Society, the biennial event saw the announcement of the latest findings related to the diversity, distribution and biology of these creatures. Now, the public gets the chance to learn about a good part of the research presented there on the pages of the open-access scholarly journal ZooKeys.


Find all articles published in ZooKeys here
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The special issue in ZooKeys, “Proceedings of the 18th International Congress of Myriapodology (25-31 August 2019, Budapest, Hungary)“, features a total of 11 research articles reporting on species new to science, updates on the distribution and conservation of already known myriapods and discoveries about the biology, ecology and evolution of individual species. Together, the publications reveal new insights into the myriapod life on four continents: Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia.

Amongst the published research outputs worth mentioning is the comparison between regional and global Red Listings of Threatened Species that worryingly identifies a missing overlap between the myriapod species included in the global IUCN Red List and the regional ones. This first-of-its-kind overview of the current conservation statuses of myriapods from around the world highlights the lack of dedicated funding for the conservation of hundreds of threatened myriapods. As a result, the scientists behind the study urge for the establishment of a Myriapoda Specialist Group in the Species Survival Commission of the IUCN.

Meanwhile, to give us a hint about how many millipedes are out there unbeknownst to the world and any conservation authorities, at the congress, three research teams revealed a total of seven new to science species: three giant pill-millipedes from Vietnam, another three from the biodiversity hotspot Madagascar and a spirostreptid millipede inhabiting Sao Tome and Principe.

Amongst the rest of the papers is the curious discovery of two Tasmanian species of flat-backed millipedes of the genus Tasmaniosoma whose neighbouring populations have seemingly come to their own terms to keep distance between each other, save for a little stretch of land, for no obvious reason. Not a single site where both species occur together was found by Dr Bob Mesibov, the millipede expert behind the study. How is the parapatric boundary maintained? How, when and where did the parapatry originate? These are the big mysteries that the already retired Australian scientist leaves for his successors to resolve.

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All articles published in the “Proceedings of the 18th International Congress of Myriapodology (25-31 August 2019, Budapest, Hungary” special issue, edited by Dr. Zoltan Korsos (now University of Veterinary Medicine Budapest) and Dr. Laszlo Danyi (Hungarian Natural History Museum), are publicly available in the online, open-access, peer-reviewed scholarly journal ZooKeys.

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Follow ZooKeys journal on Twitter and Facebook. Use #Myriapoda2019 to learn more about the studies published in the special issue.

Revolutionary method could bring us much closer to the description of hyperdiverse faunas

A novel approach relying on a short sequence of mitochondrial DNA in conjunction with a lateral image of the holotype specimen was proposed to greatly accelerate species identification and description, especially when it comes to hyperdiverse taxa, such as parasitic wasps.

At today’s rate, it could take another two millennia for science to document all currently existing species of multicellular life

Two hundred and sixty-one years ago, Linnaeus formalized binomial nomenclature and the modern system of naming organisms. Since the time of his first publication, taxonomists have managed to describe 1.8 million of the estimated 8 to 25 million extant species of multicellular life, somewhere between 7% and 22%. At this rate, the task of treating all species would be accomplished sometime before the year 4,000. In an age of alarming environmental crises, where taking measures for the preservation of our planet’s ecosystems through efficient knowledge is becoming increasingly urgent, humanity cannot afford such dawdling.

“Clearly something needs to change to accelerate this rate, and in this publication we propose a novel approach that employs only a short sequence of mitochondrial DNA in conjunction with a lateral image of the holotype specimen,”

explain the researchers behind a new study, published in the open-access journal Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift (DEZ).
Description rate of parasitic wasps species (superfamily
Ichneumonoidea).
Data from Taxapad (Yu et al. 2016).

In standardized practices, it is required that experts conduct plenty of time- and labor-consuming analyses, in order to provide thorough descriptions of both the morphology and genetics of individual species, as well as a long list of characteristic features found to differentiate each from any previously known ones. However, the scientists argue, at this stage, it is impossible to pinpoint distinct morphological characters setting apart all currently known species from the numerous ones not yet encountered. To make matters worse, finding human and financial resources for performing this kind of detailed research is increasingly problematic.

This holds especially true when it comes to hyperdiverse groups, such as ichneumonoid parasitoid wasps: a group of tiny insects believed to comprise up to 1,000,000 species, of which only 44,000 were recognised as valid, according to 2016 data. In their role of parasitoids, these wasps have a key impact on ecosystem stability and diversity. Additionally, many species parasitise the larvae of commercially important pests, so understanding their diversity could help resolve essential issues in agriculture.

Meanwhile, providing a specific species-unique snippet of DNA alongside an image of the specimen used for the description of the species (i.e. holotype) could significantly accelerate the process. By providing a name for a species through a formal description, researchers would allow for their successors to easily build on their discoveries and eventually reach crucial scientific conclusions.

“If this style were to be adopted by a large portion of the taxonomic community, the mission of documenting Earth’s multicellular life could be accomplished in a few generations, provided these organisms are still here,”

say the authors of the study.

To exemplify their revolutionary approach, the scientists use their paper to also describe a total of 18 new species of wasps in two genera (Zelomorpha and Hemichoma) known from Área de Conservación Guanacaste, Costa Rica. Currently, the team works on the treatment of related species, which still comprise only a portion of the hundreds of thousands that remain unnamed.

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Original source:

Meierotto S, Sharkey MJ, Janzen DH, Hallwachs W, Hebert PDN, Chapman EG, Smith MA (2019) A revolutionary protocol to describe understudied hyperdiverse taxa and overcome the taxonomic impediment. Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift 66(2): 119-145. https://doi.org/10.3897/dez.66.34683

The first bioluminescent click beetle known from Asia represents a new subfamily

A remarkable bioluminescent click beetle was discovered in the subtropical evergreen broadleaf forests in southwest China. Having prompted the description of a brand new subfamily, the species is the very first bioluminescent click beetle known from the continent.

A remarkable bioluminescent click beetle was discovered in the subtropical evergreen broadleaf forests in southwest China. Scientists Mr. Wen-Xuan Bi, Dr. Jin-Wu He, Dr. Xue-Yan Li, all affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Kunming), Mr. Chang-Chin Chen of Tianjin New Wei San Industrial Company, Ltd. (Tianjing, China) and Dr. Robin Kundrata of Palacký University (Olomouc, Czech Republic) published their findings in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

Even though the family of click beetles (Elateridae) contain approximately 10,000 species worldwide, it is only about 200 species able to emit light, and they inhabit Latin America and Oceania. Interestingly, the position of the luminous organs varies amongst the different click beetle lineages. In some, they are found on the foremost of the three thoracic segments of the body (prothorax), in others – on both the prothorax and the abdomen, and in few – only on the abdomen.

Luminescent behavior of Sinopyrophorus schimmeli gen. et sp. nov.
Video by Mr Wen-Xuan Bi.

“In 2017, during an expedition to the western Yunnan in China, we discovered a dusk-active bioluminescent click beetle with a single luminous organ on the abdomen, ” recalls lead scientist Mr. Wen-Xuan Bi.

Since no bioluminescent click beetle had previously been recorded in Asia, the team conducted simultaneous morphological and molecular analyses in order to clarify the identity of the new species and figure out its relationship to other representatives of its group.

Co-author Dr. Xue-Yan Li explains:

“The morphological investigation in combination with the molecular analysis based on 16 genes showed that our taxon is not only a new species in a new genus, but that it also represents a completely new subfamily of click beetles. We chose the name Sinopyrophorus for the new genus, and the new subfamily is called Sinopyrophorinae.”

In conclusion, the discovery of the new species sheds new light on the geographic distribution and evolution of luminescent click beetles. The authors agree that as a representative of a unique lineage, which is only distantly related to the already known bioluminescent click beetles, the new insect group may serve as a new model in the research of bioluminescence within the whole order of beetles.

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Original source:

Bi W-X, He J-W, Chen C-C, Kundrata R, Li X-Y (2019) Sinopyrophorinae, a new subfamily of Elateridae (Coleoptera, Elateroidea) with the first record of a luminous click beetle in Asia and evidence for multiple origins of bioluminescence in Elateridae. ZooKeys 864: 79-97. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.864.26689