New Species

Zoe interviews Kris Helgen, Chief Scientist and Director of the Australian Museum Research Institute. They discuss how one species became three, what makes these animals unique, and what other questions scientists could ask about them in the future. This paper is in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society’s February 2022 issue, “Across the great divide: revision of the genus Eupetaurus (Sciuridae: Pteromyini), the woolly flying squirrels of the Himalayan region, with the description of two new species.” A copy of the paper is available here: https://academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/article/194/2/502/6287636 To learn more about Kris, follow him on Twitter: @khelgen Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies), like the podcast page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast), and music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom). If you would like to support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPodcast

Two interviews in this episode! First, Agata Szwarc from the University of Gdansk in Poland talks about her recent paper in the December 9th(2021) issue of Zookeys in which she and her coauthors describe two new species of ostracod crustaceans from Africa! She talks with cohost Zoe Albion about these unusual crustaceans that live in temporary pools of water (very fast lives!), why they’re important to the southern Africa food chain, their asexual lifestyle, and how to find these unique and tiny organisms. The title of her paper is “Two new Cypridopsinae Kaufman, 1900 (Crustacea, Ostracoda) from southern Africa.” The paper is currently available Open Access here: https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/76123/ The second interview with Dr. Abel Batista discusses a new species of rainfrog from Panama published in the January 10th issue of the ZooKeys. Dr. Batista is a researcher at Universidad Autonoma de Chiriqui in Panama and was the guest for Season 1, Episode 15! During this interview, we talk about cloud forests in Panama, frogs guarding eggs, and the difficulties of finding these frogs. The title of the paper is “A new rainfrog of the genus Pristimantis (Anura, Brachycephaloidea) from central and eastern Panama.” The paper is currently available Open Access here: https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/63009/ To learn more about Dr. Batista, follow him on Twitter, @abelbatistapty, or multiple places on Instagram (@abelbat, @fundación_los_naturalistas, @goherpingpanama). Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies), like the podcast page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast), and music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom). If you would like to support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPodcast

Dr. Kris White and Sally Sir are our guests as they talk about their paper in which they describe a new species of amphipod from Japan in the February 1st issue of Zootaxa. Ms. Sir is an undergraduate at Georgia College and State University, and Dr. White is an Assistant Professor of Biology in the Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences at GCSU.  We discuss what an amphipod is (because not everybody seems to know that!), where they generally live, how they were found, their role in ecosystems as food and bioindicators, and the joys of dissecting very tiny specimens to draw pictures! The title of the paper is “Maerid amphipods (Crustacea: Amphipoda) from Okinawa, Japan with description of a new species.” The paper is currently available here: https://www.mapress.com/zt/article/view/zootaxa.5000.5.6 Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies), like the podcast page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast), and music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom). If you would like to support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPodcast

Dr. Juan Reyes-Puig is a Coordinator of Ecological Reserves with the Fundacion EcoMinga Red de Protection des Bosques Amenazados in Ecuador. He talks to me about his paper published in the January 10th issue of the ZooKeys in which he and his coauthors describe two new species of frogs! We discuss where these frogs live, how they were found, the importance of ecological reserves in Ecuador, and frog life without tadpoles! The title of the paper is “Strong differentiation between amphibian communities on two adjacent mountains in Upper Rio Pastaza watershed of Ecuador, with descriptions of two new species of terrestrial frogs.” The paper is currently Open Access and available here: https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/71488/ Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies), like the podcast page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast), and music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom). If you would like to support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPodcast

Dr. Brian Bahder is an Assistant Professor at the University of Florida’s Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center. He talks to me about his paper published in the September 6 issue of the Zootaxa in which he and his coauthors describe a new species of planthopper! We discuss what planthoppers are, how they can spread plant diseases, planthoppers as the mosquitoes of the plant world, how easy it is to find new planthopper species, and the strange joke behind the name of this new species! The title of the paper is “A new species of planthopper in genus Herpis (Hemiptera: Derbidae) from lowland tropical rainforest in Costa Rica.” The paper is currently Open Access and available here: https://www.mapress.com/zt/article/view/zootaxa.5032.1.7 To learn more about Dr. Brian Bahder, visit his lab’s website: https://www.bahderlab.com/ For pictures of leafhoppers and planthoppers, check out these links: Planthopper: https://uwm.edu/field-station/acanalonia-planthoppers/ Leafhopper: https://citybugs.tamu.edu/test-home-page/leafhopper-2/ To learn more about the Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center, follow them on Twitter (@UFIFASftlaudREC), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/UF.IFAS.FLREC), or their website (https://flrec.ifas.ufl.edu/). Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies), like the podcast page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast), and music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom). If you would like to support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPodcast

Dr. Elsa Panciroli, a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History in England, and associate researcher at National Museums Scotland, is my guest this week. She’s also the author of a new book called Beasts Before Us: the Untold Story of Mammal Origins and Evolution, which is coming out in the US on September 7th, 2021. She talks to me about her paper published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society in which she and her coauthors describe a species of an extinct mammaliaform, as well as a new genus, all from the British Isles! We talk about early mammals that roamed Earth with dinosaurs, what the world may have looked like when these organisms and dinosaurs roamed the planet, the joys of looking for fossils on the Isle of Skye, how to see bones embedded in rock, teeth that look like mountains, “mammals the size of pit bulls” that ate baby dinosaurs, pictures of a book in a nook! The title of the paper is “New species of mammaliaform and the cranium of Borealestes (Mammaliaformes: Docodonta) from the Middle Jurassic of the British Isles.” The paper is currently available open access in the August 2021 issues of the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society: https://academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/article-abstract/192/4/1323/6118471?redirectedFrom=fulltext To learn more about Dr. Elsa Panciroli, follow her on Twitter (@gsciencelady), or visit her website: https://elsapanciroli.wordpress.com/ For a quick video about this work, be sure to watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmvN0DrXTTc Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies), like the podcast page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast), and music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom). If you would like to support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPodcast

Alireza Zamani is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Turku in Finland. He talks to me about his paper published in ZooKeys on August 3 in which he and his coauthor describe a new genus and ten new species of spiders from Iran! We talk about his “habit” of describing new species, why so many undescribed species sit on museum shelves for decades before they’re described, how to assemble a species list for an entire country, a new species named because of this podcast (!!), and a species named after the father of modern medicine! The title of the paper is “A new genus and ten new species of spiders (Arachnida, Araneae) from Iran.” The paper is currently available open access in ZooKeys: https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/70408/ To learn more about Alireza Zamani, follow him on Twitter (@PersonSpiders), Instagram (alireza.zamani.spider), or visit his website: http://alireza-zamani.com/ Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies), like the podcast page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast), and music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom). If you would like to support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPodcast

Dr. Thiago da Silva Moreira is an Adjunct Faculty at George Washington University in Washington, DC. He talks to me about his recent paper published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society and his descriptions of six new species from Central America and the Caribbean. We discuss common names for linyphiid spiders, web structure, sexual selection of the genitals of these spiders, spider porn as a pickup line (!!), what it’s like trying to find tiny spiders in tropical habitat, a spider named after famed author Neil Gaiman, a species named after a famous Brazilian soccer team, and how describing new species is a scientific hypothesis! The title of the paper is “Systematics of the Neotropical spider genera Jalapyphantes and Selenyphantes and the circumscription of the Pocobletus clade (Araneae: Linyphiidae).” The paper is currently available here: https://academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/article-abstract/192/3/896/6070718?redirectedFrom=fulltext To learn more about Dr. Thiago da Silva Moreira, follow him on Twitter, @tsmoreira, or check out his faculty page or Research Gate page: https://biology.columbian.gwu.edu/thiago-da-silva-moreira https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Thiago-Da-Silva-Moreira Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies), like the podcast page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast), and music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom). If you would like to support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPodcast

Dr. Lyubomir Penev is the Managing Director and Founder of Pensoft Publishing and a Professor of Ecology at the Bulgaria Academy of Sciences in Sofia, Bulgaria. He talks to me about the founding of Pensoft Publishing and the books and journals published by Pensoft, like ZooKeys, a journal often cited in this podcast! We discuss the importance of biodiversity discovery, the causes of and possible solutions to the taxonomic impediment (see Episode 21 for Part I), XML publishing in biodiversity, and the joy of doing science! To learn more about Dr. Lyubomir Penev and Pensoft Publishing, follow Pensoft on Twitter, @Pensoft, or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Pensoft and visit his biography page: https://pensoft.net/lyubomir_penev Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies), like the podcast page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast), and music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom). If you would like to support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPodcast

Dr. Scott Schneider is a Research Entomologist in the Systematic Entomology Lab at the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service in Beltsville, MD, USA. He talks to me about his paper published in the June 24 issue of the ZooKeys in which he and his coauthors describe a four new species of armored scale insects! We discuss how these insects can be legless, their economic importance, the possibility that any of us could have inhaled (!!) one of their larvae, why only males can fly, a species who’s nearest relative is found in Africa, how to look at specimens that are 1 mm (or less!) long on microscope slides, and the wise choice to work on a group of organisms that doesn’t interest other people! The title of the paper is “Four new species of Aspidiotini (Hemiptera, Diaspididae, Aspidiotinae) from Panama, with a key to Panamanian species.” The paper is currently Open Access and available here: https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/68409/ To learn more about Dr. Scott Schneider, visit his website or his Research Gate site: https://www.ars.usda.gov/people-locations/person?person-id=52126 https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Scott-Schneider Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies), like the podcast page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast), and music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom). If you would like to support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPodcast

Dr. Peter Jaeger is the Head of Arachnology at the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum in Frankfurt, Germany. He talks to me about his paper published in the June 10 issue of the Zootaxa in which he describes two new genera and two new species of huntsman spiders! We discuss the large amount of size variation in these spiders, a species named after David Bowie, a specimen collected about the time he was born, the fun of collecting in the jingles of southeast Asia, and why we need to keep looking for new species! The title of the paper is “Two new enigmatic genera of huntsman spiders from Madagascar (Araneae: Sparassidae).” The paper is currently Open Access and available here: https://www.mapress.com/zt/article/view/zootaxa.4984.1.24 To learn more about Dr. Peter Jaeger, visit his website: https://www.senckenberg.de/en/institutes/senckenberg-research-institute-natural-history-museum-frankfurt/division-terrestrial-zoology/section-arachnology/arachnology_team/ Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies), like the podcast page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast), and music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom). If you would like to support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPodcast

Dr. Graham Oliver is an Honorary Research Fellow at the National Museum of Wales in the UK. He talks to me about his paper published in the June 15 issue of the ZooKeys in which he and his coauthors describe a new species of reef-building oyster! We discuss oyster-built versus coral=built reefs, cementing bivalves (true oysters), oyster clumps that look like cows, whether this new species is invasive to the Arabian Gulf, the difficulty in identifying oysters, and the reluctance to challenge orthodoxy! The title of the paper is “Molecular and morphological systematics of a new, reef-forming, cupped oyster from the northern Arabian Gulf: Talonostrea salpinx new species.” The paper is currently Open Access and available here: https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/66992/ To learn more about Dr. Graham Oliver, visit his website: https://museum.wales/staff/112/Graham-Oliver/ Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies), like the podcast page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast), and music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom). If you would like to support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPodcast

Dr. Adam Brunke is a Research Scientist with Agriculture and Agri-food Canada and the Canadian National Collection of Insects, Arachnids, and Nematodes. He talks to me about his paper published in the June 3 issue of the ZooKeys in which he and his coauthors describe four new species of aleocharine staphylinid rove beetles! We discuss what a rove beetle is, the hyper diversity of rove beetles, the amazing diversity of habitats in which they are found, synonymies in taxonomy, elementary school students finding new species at school, explaining to police about midnight beetle collecting, and getting lost on mountains! The title of the paper is “Integrative taxonomy of Nearctic and Palearctic Aleocharinae: new species, synonymies, and records (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae).” The paper is currently Open Access and available here: https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/64460/ To learn more About Dr. Adam Brunke, follow him on Twitter, @aj_brunke, or visit his website: https://profils-profiles.science.gc.ca/en/profile/dr-adam-j-brunke Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies), like the podcast page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast), and music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom). If you would like to support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPodcast

Dr. Jason Bond is the Schlinger Chair in Insect Systematics at the University of California - Davis. He talks to me about a special topic of concern—something called the taxonomic impediment, which is the shortage of trained taxonomists and curators needed to identify, describe, catalog, curate, and organize species and species collections around the world. We talk about why there’s an impediment, and possible ways to overcome the impediment. You can follow Dr. Jason Bond on Twitter, @Jason_E_Bond, or visit his faculty page (https://entomology.ucdavis.edu/people/jason-bond) lab’s webpage to learn more about him and the research in his lab: https://www.bondlab.org/ Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies), like the podcast page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast), and music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom). If you would like to support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPodcast

Dr. Bill Shear is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Biology at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia. He talks to me about his paper published in the May 24 issue of the Zootaxain which he and his coauthor describe three new genera and eighteen new species of millipedes from the US! We talk about the difference between millipedes and centipedes, the “poor man’s rainforest” in temperate leaf litter, chemical defenses in millipedes, the wonderful biodiversity in soil, the wonderful biodiversity waiting to be discovered just in the US, and about problems with humans removing predators of whitetail deer! The title of the paper is “Three new genera and eighteen new species of miniature polydesmid millipedes from the northwestern United States (Diplopoda, Polydesmida, Polydesmidae).” The paper is currently Open Access and available here: https://www.mapress.com/j/zt/article/view/zootaxa.4975.1.3 Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies), like the podcast page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast), and music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom). If you would like to support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPodcast