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There’s a new genus of Staphylinid beetle named after one of the most legendary Manga characters! Fang-Shuo Hu and his coauthor Alexey Solodovnikov have been working on teasing apart some complex beetle lineages, leading them to describe a new genus and two new species. The genus Luffy is named after One Piece’s infamous Monkey D. Luffy, and the species are L. nika (Luffy’s magical fruit) and L. schillhammeri in honor of Harald Schillhammer, a Staphylinologist whose mentorship helped Fang-Shuo along the way. 

Also part of this conversation is Rodrigo Salvador, editor in chief of the Journal of Geek Studies which publishes peer-reviewed articles about a variety of cultural topics. Rodrigo and Fang-Shuo discuss the impact of these interdisciplinary projects, and how naming a species or writing a paper can provide a gateway into taxonomy for those who might have never considered it important before.

Fang-Shuo Hu’s paper “Luffy gen. nov., a new genus of Staphylinina (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae, Staphylininae), remarkable for understanding the Eucibdelus lineage” is in volume 1281 of Zookeys. 

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1281.198593

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Fang-Shuo Hu - Transcript

New Genus: Luffy

New Species: Luffy nika, Luffy schillhammeri

Episode image credit: Fang-Shuo Hu

Check out the Journal of Geek Studies: https://jgeekstudies.org

Find more of Rodrigo’s work: https://researchportal.helsinki.fi/en/persons/rodrigo-b-salvador/

Learn about how community science efforts help us learn more about rove beetles: doi.org/10.1016/j.fooweb.2025.e00399

Follow Fang-Shuo on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hu.fangshuo/

And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dragonbird.hu/

And X: https://x.com/fangshuohu?s=11

Be sure to follow New Species on Bluesky (@newspeciespodcast.bsky.social) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and “like” the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast).

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast and enjoy bonus episodes, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

If you would like to make a one-time contribution to this podcast, you can do so at https://buymeacoffee.com/newspeciespod

Hi everyone,

Today I’m re-releasing an old episode in honor of a friend. It was actually just under a year ago that this episode on Adelopsis Beetles with Eduardo Gomyde aired. With his passing this week, I wanted to take a moment to remember him.

Eduardo was an incredible taxonomist, so dedicated to his “little brown beetles.” He appreciated the beauty in everything. I have also rarely met a kinder person. The time he spent on this earth was not nearly enough, and I know I’m one of many who will miss him dearly. I hope you enjoy listening one more time to Eduardo talk about the work and the world he loved so much.

What kind of catfish are in your local river? In Northeastern Brazil, catfish are so diverse and specialized that sometimes each river its own species. In fact, Ananda Serejo has been studying this group of catfish for 10 years, working hard to untangle their phylogeny. “The intraspecific variation, it's very, very, very hard to find” she says. “You need to have this integrative approach, use more than one line of evidence that you could be more sure about what you are proposing” 

Ananda is mainly working on the taxonomy of this group, but she found a way to engage her community of Maranhão by naming her species after two cultural icons, Catirina from the Festa de São Joã, and the incredible local artist and performer Dona Teté. Ananda believes that giving people this direct connection to the fish will help them be better conserved, appreciated, and understood.

Ananda Serejo’s paper “Integrative taxonomy reveals two new species of whiptail catfishes Loricaria (Siluriformes: Loricariidae) from northeastern Brazil” is in the April 8th 2026 edition of the Journal of Fish Biology. 

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1111/jfb.70395

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Ananda Serejo - Transcript

New Species: Loricaria catirina, Loricaria teteae

Episode image credit: Anada Serejo

Read more about Ananda’s work with catfishes: https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4915.3.10

Follow Ananda’s adventures on instagram: @anandaserejo

Read about Ananda’s other new Loricaria species: http://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4915.3.10

Learn more about Dona Teté: https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dona_Tet%C3%A9

Be sure to follow New Species on Bluesky (@newspeciespodcast.bsky.social) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and “like” the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast).

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast and enjoy bonus episodes, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

If you would like to make a one-time contribution to this podcast, you can do so at https://buymeacoffee.com/newspeciespod

Lily Deeter works on scale insects, tiny creatures that many people aren’t familiar with, or only see as a pest. But once you get to know them, you’ll be hooked. Not only do they have fascinating morphology, physical characteristics that at times can seem otherworldly, but with a little practice you’ll be looking for them everywhere. “I don't think that the insect is just hanging out where entomologists tend to hang out,” Lily explains; the locations she found her new species include her neighborhood park, a brewery, at an entomology conference, and right outside her office. “You just kind of had to look somewhere just a little bit outside of the box.”

Lily’s fascination with scale insects is apparent as she shares their amazing biology, including some unexpected genetics, and lots more about these tiny creatures. And of course she introduces us to her new species “Acanthococcus orzo,” named after the pasta. 

Lily Deeter’s paper “A new species of grass-infesting felt scale (Hemiptera: Coccomorpha:

Eriococcidae), with descriptions of all life stages and a key to the adult female

Acanthococcus Signoret of Florida, U.S.A.” is in volume 5717 of Zootaxa.

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5717.2.3

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Lily Deeter - Transcript

New Species: Acanthococcus orzo

Episode image credit: Erin Powell

Browse ScaleNet: https://scalenet.info/

Scale insects and gecko conservation: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26198719

Beneficial scale insects: https://doi.org/10.1079/9781800620643.0001

Be sure to follow New Species on Bluesky (@newspeciespodcast.bsky.social) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and “like” the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast).

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast and enjoy bonus episodes, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

If you would like to make a one-time contribution to this podcast, you can do so at https://buymeacoffee.com/newspeciespod

If you want to be a scientist, you enroll in 4-10 years of higher education. If you want to be an artist, you go to art school and learn a classic technique. Two choices; a binary. Right?

Or, could it be that there’s an entire spectrum of choices in between? In this episode, we explore the places where art and science connect with three talented people who have a foot in both worlds. Aissa Domingo is an artist, photographer, and illustrator, Nicole Parish is an artist and naturalist, and Kathleen Baraan is a nature-based art educator. All three have unique perspectives on the shared practice of art and science, and our discussion reveals how important art is to telling scientific stories.

See more of Aissa’s work on her website: https://aissadomingo.com/wp/

And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aissa_domingo/

And more of Nicole’s work on hers: https://www.soundoftheforest.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_soundoftheforest_/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/soundoftheforest.bsky.social

Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@soundoftheforest

And follow Kathleen’s work on her website: https://beacons.ai/deartoourhearts

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deartoourhearts/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/deartoourhearts/

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Aissa Domingo, Kathleen Baraan, and Nicole Parish - Transcript

Other resources and people mentioned in this episode:

Leonard Co: https://www.philippineplants.org/General/AboutLeonard.html

Baba Dioum: https://biographycentral.com/biography/baba_dioum

Wild Wonder Foundation’s prompts for nature journaling: https://www.wildwonder.org/store/p/nj-zine

The Philippine Taxonomic Initiative: https://phtaxa.org/

Be sure to follow New Species on Bluesky (@newspeciespodcast.bsky.social) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and “like” the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast).

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast and enjoy free bonus episodes, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

If you would like to make a one-time contribution to this podcast, you can do so at https://buymeacoffee.com/newspeciespod

Crayfish, Crawfish, Crawdad; no matter what you call them, If you live in the southeastern United States, their biodiversity hotspot is in your backyard! Astacologist (crayfish biologist) Dr. Zack Graham joins us on this episode to tell us just how wild these freshwater crustaceans are. He shares just a bit of his knowledge on their biodiversity, interesting behaviors, their impact on American culture, and some of the unique threats they continue to face. 

At the end of the day, why do crayfish matter? Zack says, “I think at a basic level, humans are just generally curious about what's going on out in nature. And that's what really fuels a lot of my work, just trying to understand what has happened in the past, what's going to happen in the future to these animals that have been living on earth for over 300 million years. They've been here for a very long time. So I think, you know, they kind of have a right to be here and to be protected and to be studied and understood.”

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Zack Graham - Transcript

Episode image credit: Zack Graham

Learn more about Zack’s lab: https://crayfish.westliberty.edu/

You can also follow them on facebook: www.facebook.com/wlucrayfish

And on Instagram: @wlucrayfishlab

You can order Zack’s book here: https://uncpress.org/9781469685731/crayfish-crawfish-crawdad/

Learn more about the International Association of Astacology: https://www.astacology.org/default.asp?uid=Guest

Peruse the American Crayfish Atlas: https://americancrayfishatlas.web.illinois.edu/

And check out some beautiful crayfish photos from Zack’s adventures: https://www.flickr.com/photos/196391561@N03/

Be sure to follow New Species on Bluesky (@newspeciespodcast.bsky.social) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and “like” the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast).

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast and enjoy bonus episodes, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

While giving a tour in the Ecuadorian Amazon, Alex Bently identified a clump on a leaf as a dead spider parasitized by a Cordyceps fungus. When it moved under his touch, he realized that it was actually a unique case of mimicry, and worked with David Ricardo Díaz Guevara and Nadine Dupérré to describe it as a new species. In this episode, Alex shares the unique nature of this spider, as well as what we can learn from it about the complex relationships that can occur between fungi and other organisms. 

Alex Bently’s paper “The Cordyceps spider”: Taczanowskia waska sp. nov. (Araneae: Araneidae), a new spider species and a novel case of mimicry of an araneopathogenic fungus (Cordycipitaceae: Gibellula)” is in volume 5760 of Zootaxa.

It can be found here: www.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5760.5.4

Photo Credit: David Ricardo Díaz Guevara

Listen to an interview with Alex’s coauthor David in spanish on New Species Español - https://open.spotify.com/episode/1YZuyGcLva6hK752ueXOtZ?si=6qj-Ru2hTwSpMnVLsTpGwA

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Alex Bently - Transcript

New Species: Taczanowskia waska

Follow Waska Amazonia on instagram: @ waska.amazonia

And on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WaskaAmazonia

Some neat press coverage of this new species:

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/spider-mimicing-cordyceps-9.7141687

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/20/science/spider-cordyceps-fungus-zombies.html

Be sure to follow New Species on Bluesky (@newspeciespodcast.bsky.social) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and “like” the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast).

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast and enjoy bonus episodes, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod
If you would like to make a one-time contribution to this podcast, you can do so at https://buymeacoffee.com/newspeciespod

Freshwater shrimps are difficult to study. They’re nocturnal, they live in leaf litter, and yet they are involved in both commercial fishing and the pet trade, making research on their diversity critical. Dr. Prakash Sanjeevi and Maclean Santos have a new strategy for adapting to these challenges: harnessing the power of community. Through educational videos, social media, workshops, and more they provide training to already-interested hobbyists, who in turn help them find rare specimens for papers like this one, in which they redescribe a species that hadn’t been seen in Indian waters for 72 years. 

“I truly feel that it is not the talent which survives the long term in this research game, It is more of the hard work and it is more about how much you like the species because if you love a species, you will work really hard for the species” says Maclean. Listen in as we discuss the fascinating morphology, biology, and joy provided by these freshwater shrimps.

Maclean Santos and Prakash Sanjeevi’s paper “Rediscovery of the genus Atyopsis Chace, 1983 (Decapoda: Atyidae) in mainland India following a 72-year gap” is in volume 5722 of Zootaxa. 

It can be found here: www.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5722.4.7

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Maclean Santos and Prakash Sanjeevi - Transcript

Episode image credit: Maclean Santos

Read their recent paper describing a new species from the same region: https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5194.3.5

Follow Maclean and Prakash on Instagram:

Prakash: @sanjeeviprakash 

Maclean: @homeaquat

More pictures and information on GBIF: https://www.gbif.org/species/7839136

Be sure to follow New Species on Bluesky (@newspeciespodcast.bsky.social) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and “like” the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast).

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast and enjoy bonus episodes, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod
If you would like to make a one-time contribution to this podcast, you can do so at https://buymeacoffee.com/newspeciespod

“I hope that individual taxonomists take a step back and really think about the choices they make when it comes to collaboration…I want taxonomists to consider equity in their work, and not just consider that but actively support actions that are making a difference in the way we do science.” Cláudia Xavier’s words here address the issue that is the focus of her new paper; who actually gets the opportunity to be a taxonomist? 

In this episode, I talk to Katherine and Cláudia about their experiences writing this paper, but also being taxonomists in a field that wasn’t built with everyone in mind. They tell me the stories of two marginalized taxonomists who made outsized impacts on their field, and how they hope their research lays the foundation for a more equitable and just arachnology in the future.

Katherine Montana and Cláudia Xavier’s paper “If history is written by the victors, who describes the spiders? Species author trends reflect gender and geopolitical disparities in biodiversity science” is in volume 146, issue 1 of the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. 

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1093/biolinnean/blaf067

A transcript of this episode can be found here:

Cláudia and Katherine

A spanish transcript of this episode can be found here:

Cláudia and Katherine en español

Follow Cláudia on Bluesky: @claudiaxavier.bsky.social 

And learn from her on Instagram: @geaaoficial

Check out more from the Esposito lab:

https://www.arachnerds.info/

And follow them on Instagram: @arachnerds

Dr. Esposito is also the founder of the 500 Queer Scientists project:

https://500queerscientists.com/

World Spider Catalog: https://wsc.nmbe.ch/

Untold Stories from the Academy:

https://www.calacademy.org/scientists/library/untold-stories

Why Fish Don’t Exist by Lulu Millerhttps://pushkinpress.com/book/why-fish-dont-exist/

Additional reading:

Developing scientific equity for biodiversity research: a thematic analysis of ecological change impacts on ranchers in Baja California Sur, Mexico: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742170525100100

Science in Indigenous homelands: addressing power and justice in sustainability science from/with/in the Penobscot River

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-021-00904-3

Promoting equity between the Global North and Global South in entomological research

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cois.2025.101357

Anti-racist interventions to transform ecology, evolution and conservation biology departments

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-021-01522-z

Be sure to follow New Species on Bluesky (@newspeciespodcast.bsky.social) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and “like” the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast).

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast and enjoy bonus episodes, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

New Species en Español will be a Spanish-language version of the New Species Podcast, hosted by Ivonne Garzón.

Subscribe to it here: https://open.spotify.com/user/31jdpbfn26x3w7sa2b76db3z2vxa?si=160a1a8eac644f00Or wherever you get your podcasts.

Sometimes, a collection of new species turns out to be… no new species!

Takahiro Sugiyama, Ryutaro Goto, and Chloé Fourreau began studying the unique ectoparasitic scale worm Gastrolepidia clavigera in part because of its fascinating diversity of color, likely contributing to its ability to camouflage on sea cucumbers. After some genetic work, they found that this entire rainbow of scale worms all actually seem to belong to the same species! 

Takahiro Sugiyama, Ryutaro Goto, and Chloé Fourreau’s paper “Host specific camouflage in a holothurian-ectoparasitic scale worm: testing the host-race hypothesis using COI and genome-wide SNP data” is in volume 173 of Marine Biology 

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-025-04744-y

Episode image credit: Takahiro Sugiyama and Ryutaro Goto

A New Species episode with Chloé on Polychaete worms: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0aH2bPNb4u3wOrONIYfZkp?si=7i0lzzSlSjWfsXce436-3g

Follow Chloé on instagram and Bluesky: @chaoticchloeia

Follow the MISE lab on instagram: @mise_lab

Read Takahiro’s recent paper about the scale worms that live on sea stars: doi.org/10.3800/pbr.15.289

Original description of G. clavigera: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/50342#page/8/mode/1up

Be sure to follow New Species on Bluesky (@newspeciespodcast.bsky.social) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and “like” the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast).

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast and enjoy bonus episodes, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod
If you would like to make a one-time contribution to this podcast, you can do so at https://buymeacoffee.com/newspeciespod

Donard Geci fell into studying spiders by accident, but now he can’t imagine his life without them. He’s one of the only arachnologists in the Balkans, a hotspot for spiders as well as plenty of other flora and fauna. It’s difficult, he says, “but you have many things to do here because many groups are unexplored.”

Trapdoor spiders are masterful architects, and there is so much work to do in order to better understand their relationships to one another. Fortunately, Donard isn’t deterred at all and wants to encourage even more scientists to study the amazing quantity of life found in the Balkans. 

Donard Geci’s paper “Trapdoor spiders of the family Nemesiidae Simon, 1889 (Araneae: Mygalomorphae) from Kosovo” is in volume 20, issue 2 of Arachnology. 

It can be found here: www.doi.org/10.13156/arac.2025.20.2.281

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Donard Geci - Transcript

New Species: Brachythele kosovarica, Nemesia dukagjinica

Episode image credit: Donard Geci

A New Trapdoor Spider with Christian Pertegal: available in english and in spanish

An episode with Alireza Zamani: https://www.newspeciespodcast.net/all-episodes/e28-a-new-species-named-because-of-this-podcast-and-another-after-the-father-of-modern-medicine

First DNA Barcoding of Dysderidae: https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5653.4.2

New Eratigena from the Balkans based on an integrative approach: https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5636.1.6

Find Donard on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/donardgecii

And on X: https://x.com/donard_geci

Be sure to follow New Species on Bluesky (@newspeciespodcast.bsky.social) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and “like” the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast).

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast and enjoy bonus episodes, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

If you would like to make a one-time contribution to this podcast, you can do so at https://buymeacoffee.com/newspeciespod

There are plenty of taxonomists who use museum collections as a resource, but not everyone makes collections the basis of their work. Rodrigo Dios studies Tachinid flies, a group that displays some of the most diverse parasitism behavior of all animals. By reorganizing and rediscribing museum specimens, he finds that we have a lot to learn from both flies and museum collections. “It's crazy,” says Rodrigo, about working in collections. “You can actually assess all this knowledge, all this variation between time and between space as well. It's like infinite knowledge.”

Rodrigo Dios’ paper “Taxonomic update on Cordyligasterini, new generic synonyms and new species of Neosophia Guimarães” is in volume 29 of Entomological Science. 

It can be found here: www.doi.org/10.1111/ens.70003

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Rodrigo Dios - English Transcript

This transcript translated into portuguese: Rodrigo Dios - Portuguese Transcript

New Species: Neosophia argentifasciata, Neosophia pakitza

Episode image credit: Rodrigo Dios

Follow Rodrigo on Instagram: @rodrigodios

Rodrigo’s paper about the fly that lays eggs on plants: www.doi.org/10.6620/ZS.2024.63-54Connect with Rodrigo on iNaturalist: https://www.inaturalist.org/people/rodrigodios

Don’t be shy! Contact Rodrigo about flies: rodrigodios@gmail.com

Be sure to follow New Species on Bluesky (@newspeciespodcast.bsky.social) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and “like” the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast).

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast and enjoy bonus episodes, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

If you would like to make a one-time contribution to this podcast, you can do so at https://buymeacoffee.com/newspeciespod

“The queen especially was not like, like totally not like mad mad, but like mad at him…”

That analysis is from Charleigh (age 6 ), who I talked to along with her dad Jesse (older than 6) about the 1998 classic A Bug’s Life! We discussed serious matters such as the number of legs ants have, if insects have blood, and if the movie missed an opportunity by not including a dung beetle (I think they did). 

Charleigh and Jesse co-host the amazing podcast arthropod adventures, which teaches listeners about arthropods they might see in their backyard. Stay inquisitive and never stop learning with me as I talk to them in this very silly bonus episode!

Our ratings:

Scientific accuracy 🐜 🐜 🐜

Enjoyability 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜

Bonus episodes are typically reviews of creature-feature horror movies by me and a scientist with expertise relevant to the film. If you enjoyed this episode, you can listen to more of them for free on Patreon.com/newspeciespod

Check out arthropod adventures wherever you get your podcasts

Follow them on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61563432847704

And instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arthropod_adventures_podcast/

Check out their merch: https://www.redbubble.com/people/jhurlburt33/shop?asc=u

Learn more about the Trevor Project: https://www.thetrevorproject.org/

One-time podcast support: buymeacoffee.com/newspeciespod

Be sure to follow New Species on Bluesky (@newspeciespodcast.bsky.social) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and “like” the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast).

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

Hi everyone, incredibly it's time for the third biennial New Species Census! Every two years I ask listeners to answer a few questions about who they are, how they listen, and what they would like from the podcast in the future.

Take the survey: https://forms.gle/V8G9VSKxfvaxhxdx5

The survey will be open until February 13th 2026, after which time I'll post a summary of the feedback on instagram.* Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts! I'm so grateful to everyone who listens to this little hobby podcast, and your feedback really helps it to grow.

If you have general feedback or have missed the window, you can always email me at newspeciespodcast@gmail.com. Thank you as always for listening!

*Please note there are a few people confused - the New Species Podcast instagram is @newspeciespodcast! There is another account called New Species which is not me.

Do you ever wonder if your pet could be a new species? Paleontologist Benedikt Kästle took a closer look at his, and it led to a brand new genus and species! Also known as woodlice, these popular pets are easy to keep and easier to enjoy for the way they skitter and roll up. Benedikt explains that his scientific background can help members of the isopod community connect the valuable experience they have from rearing isopods to the broader research community, where much about isopods is still unknown.

Benedikt does this both through his instagram account and in his conversations with hobbyists from around the world, and it makes an impact. This new species is one of many that went undescribed for many years. Now its name is known from Martinique to Germany and beyond. Listen to this episode for a story that celebrates the humble roly poly in all its diversity and mystery.

Benedikt Kästle’s paper “Description of a new genus and species of terrestrial isopod (Oniscidea, Armadillidae) endemic to Martinique” is in volume 47 issue 29 of Zoosystema. 

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.5252/zoosystema-2025v47a29

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Benedikt Kästle - Transcript

New Species: Caribodillo martinicensis

Follow Benedikt on instagram: @sumerian.demon

Episode image credit: Benedikt Kästle

Be sure to follow New Species on Bluesky (@newspeciespodcast.bsky.social) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and “like” the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast).

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast and enjoy bonus episodes, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

Stoneflies, or Plecoptera, are an order of insects with around 4,000 species. But that’s about to change. In her paper “Stonefly systematics: past, present, and future,” Anna Eichert and her colleagues from around the world map out the way stoneflies have changed as a group over time, some of the factors that shape our current understanding of the stoneflies, and what can change in the future to make sure our knowledge of stonefly diversity continues to grow. Learn from Anna’s account of her experiences and her passion for stoneflies in this episode, and next time you encounter a stream, flip over a rock or two.

Anna Eichert’s paper “Stonefly systematics: past, present, and future” is in volume 9, issue 4 of Insect Systematics and Diversity. 

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1093/isd/ixaf026

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Anna Eichert - Transcript

Episode image credit: Anna Eichert

Email Anna: aeichert@amnh.org

Follow Anna on Instagram: @annaeichert, @bugtimez

And Bluesky: @annaeichert.bsky.social‬

Be sure to follow New Species on Bluesky (@newspeciespodcast.bsky.social) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast).

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast and enjoy bonus episodes, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

The genus Adelopsis is one of the many groups of LBB’s, ‘little brown beetles’ that often get left behind or unidentified by researchers. Eduardo Gomyde is a scientist giving them a closer look. “We're not just identifying species,” he explains, “but we are also analyzing and understanding the finer scale of the [features] that help us to differentiate them.”

Using Scanning Electron Microscopy, Eduardo and his coauthor carefully examined the tiniest of details. To find these specimens they had to sort through countless vials of “bycatch”, material leftover from other research that gets deposited in museum collections. Listen in as Eduardo describes his work, and learn about the great joy he takes in giving the LBB’s the attention and care they deserve.

Eduardo Gomyde’s paper “Revisiting the concept of ‘ultra evolved’ aedeagi of Adelopsis Portevin, 1907 (Coleoptera: Leiodidae: Cholevinae: Ptomaphagini) using scanning electron

microscopy, with description and redescription of species” is in volume 17 issue 1 of Megataxa.

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.11646/megataxa.17.1.3

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Eduardo Gomyde - Transcript

New Species: Adelopsis boraceia, Adelopsis monticola, Adelopsis vanini, Adelopsis gibber, Adelopsis ilhabela, Adelopsis caeteh, Adelopsis gandarela, Adelopsis sacerdotis

Episode image credit: Eduardo Gomyde

Listen to Eduardo and I discuss the movie Mosquito Man on a free bonus episode: https://www.patreon.com/posts/mosquito-man-144374393

Be sure to follow New Species on Bluesky (@newspeciespodcast.bsky.social) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast).

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast and enjoy bonus episodes, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

How much do you know about lichens? These incredible taxa are understudied, but today’s guest is making sure they’re not undervalued. “You can’t look at lichens under a microscope and not become immediately obsessed,” says Dr. Erin Manzitto-Tripp. “It’s an endless world of magnificent, beautiful biodiversity.”

Erin works in the mountains of Colorado to describe new species of lichens along with the rest of her fantastic lab. For this paper they called not just on the power of nature, but also on the power of music. These three new species are named after the Indigo Girls, the individual members of the band and the band itself, in thanks for the many gifts Erin and others have received through their music.

Erin Manzitto-Tripp’s paper “The Thin Horizon of a Plan is Almost Clear: Towards a Lichen Biodiversity Inventory of the Southern Rocky Mountains, USA” is in volume 712 issue 3 of Phytotaxa. 

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.11646/phytotaxa.712.3.1

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Erin Manzitto-Tripp - Transcript

New Species: Lecanora indigoana, Lepraria saliersiae, Pertusaria rayana

Episode image credit: Erin Manzitto-Tripp

Listen to “The Wood Song,” whose lyrics gave this paper its title: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0tUkepNqiA

Learn about the Lichens of Great Smoky Mountains National Park: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43188704

Check out Erin’s Lab and their work: https://tripp-report.com/

An article about these new species, with some beautiful photos: https://www.cpr.org/2025/07/24/cu-new-lichen-species-named-after-indigo-girls/

And the blog post from the Indigo Girls after hearing about their new species:

https://www.indigogirls.com/blog/bnjasxuusxhyfhyynob5oiko8om81a

Be sure to follow New Species on Bluesky (@newspeciespodcast.bsky.social) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and “like” the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast).

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast and enjoy bonus episodes, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

The Cretaceous insects in the family Umenocoleidae have been difficult to classify, but for Soo Bin Lee they are a window into one of the most interesting periods of our prehistoric world. While closely related to the modern cockroaches in order Blattodea, fossil Umenocoleids have been found and researched across the world and found to be present across a larger portion of geologic time than expected. They’re linked to the Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution, an important period of change when angiosperms, or flowering plants, exploded in diversity and prevalence and changed the development of insects as a result. 

By examining the tiny and delicate wing venation of fossils, Lee and his coauthors were able to uncover and untangle a new chapter in our knowledge of prehistory. Listen in as Lee draws us into the world of prehistoric creatures, environmental change, and the beauty and complexity of wings.

Soo Bin Lee’s paper “A new Albian genus and species and two other new species of Umenocoleidae (Dictyoptera) from South Korea” is in volume 166 of Cretaceous Research

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cretres.2024.106013

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Soo Bin Lee - Transcript

New Species: Umenocoleus minimus, Pseudoblattapterix weoni, Petropterix koreaensis

Be sure to follow New Species on Bluesky (@newspeciespodcast.bsky.social) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast).

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast and enjoy bonus episodes, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

Do you have a love of holometabolic insects? Ivonne Garzón is the president of their fan club! She studies a subset of geometrid moths that may look drab, but their colorful caterpillars and relationships with toxic plants make them endlessly interesting. “There is no way to get bored,” Ivonne says, “There is no way! You are amazed all the time.” 

The story of these moths also includes community; a visit to a caterpillar lab, a collaboration with the local herbarium, and a poll where over 5,000 people chose the name for one of her new species. For Ivonne, taxonomy makes her life joyful and interesting. Make your life more joyful and interesting by listening to Ivonne’s interview as she shares her wealth of knowledge and curiosity with all of us.

Ivonne Garzón’s paper “A new cryptic Phyllodonta Warren (Lepidoptera: Geometridae) from Mexico City with documentation of its life history” is in volume 5666 of Zootaxa. 

It can be found here: www.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5666.1.8

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Ivonne Garzón - Transcript

New Species: Phyllodonta coztomatlivora

Episode image credit: Ivonne Garzón

Check out Ivonne’s lab instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/leps.de.mx/

Listen to Rosemary Gillespie’s episode on New Species: https://www.newspeciespodcast.net/release-happy-face-spiders-with-rosemary-gillespie

Be sure to follow New Species on Bluesky (@newspeciespodcast.bsky.social) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast).

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast and enjoy bonus episodes, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

Los puercoespines, una de las criaturas más adorables y dolorosas a la vez, captan la atención en toda su área de distribución mundial. En este artículo, Héctor Ramírez-Chaves y sus coautores describen una nueva especie de puercoespín de los Andes colombianos. El trabajo los ha llevado a recorrer diferentes ecosistemas y a numerosos museos internacionales. Mientras Héctor describe la increíble biodiversidad de Colombia, también aborda la importancia crucial de su trabajo. "Aún necesitamos estudiar a los roedores aquí en Colombia", afirma. "Hay muchos grupos de especies nuevos que no se han estudiado en absoluto porque no son muy carismáticos, por lo que se los descuida. No se los estudia y son muy importantes para el ecosistema. Por eso, necesitamos más atención en estos pequeños mamíferos".

Si no quieres enamorarte de los puercoespines, ¡no escuches este episodio! La alegría de Héctor es contagiosa y la curiosidad de estos misteriosos roedores es irresistible.

El artículo de Héctor Ramírez-Chaves, “Una revisión del complejo Puercoespín Quichua Coendou quichua (Rodentia: Erethizontidae) con la descripción de una nueva especie de Colombia”, se encuentra en el volumen 106, número 3, de la revista Journal of Mammalogy.

Puede consultarse aquí: https://doi.org/10.1093/jmammal/gyae140

Puede consultar la transcripción de este episodio aquí: Héctor Ramírez-Chaves - Transcripción en español

Nueva especie: Coendou vossi

Crédito de la imagen del episodio: Omar Daniel León Alvarado

Visite el laboratorio de Héctor en Instagram: @izbd_lab

Y consulte su enlace para ver investigaciones recientes: https://linktr.ee/izbd_lab

Siga a Nuevas Especies en Bluesky (@newspeciespodcast.bsky.social) e Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) y dale a "Me gusta" en la página del podcast en Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast).

La música de este podcast es "No More (Instrumental)", de HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom).

Si tienes preguntas o comentarios sobre este podcast, escríbenos a NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com.

Si quieres apoyar este podcast y disfrutar de episodios extra, puedes hacerlo en https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

Simultaneously one of the cutest and most pain-inducing creatures, porcupines capture attention all over their worldwide range. In this paper, Héctor Ramirez-Chaves and his coauthors describe a new species of porcupine from the Andes of Colombia. The work has taken them across different ecosystems and to a good handful of international museums. As Héctor describes Colombia’s incredible biodiversity, he also addresses the critical nature of his work. “We still need to study rodents here in Colombia,” he says. “There are plenty of new species groups that have not been studied at all because they are not very charismatic, so they are neglected. People don't study them and they are very important to the ecosystem. So we need more attention in these small mammals.”

If you don’t want to fall in love with porcupines, don’t listen to this episode! Héctor’s joy is infectious and the curious nature of these cryptic rodents is irresistible.

Héctor Ramirez-Chaves’ paper “A review of the Quichua Porcupine Coendou quichua complex (Rodentia: Erethizontidae) with the description of a new species from Colombia” is in volume 106 issue 3 of the Journal of Mammalogy

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1093/jmammal/gyae140

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Héctor Ramirez-Chaves - Transcript

A transcript of this episode in spanish can be found here: Héctor Ramirez-Chaves - Spanish Transcript

New Species: Coendou vossi

Episode image credit: Omar Daniel Leon Alvarado

Check out Héctor’s lab on instagram: @izbd_lab

And take a look at their linktree for recent research: https://linktr.ee/izbd_lab

Be sure to follow New Species on Bluesky (@newspeciespodcast.bsky.social) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and “like” the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast).

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast and enjoy bonus episodes, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

The moment John Bunker saw the 200+ year old tree, he knew it might be special. He had no idea however, that it was one of America’s oldest surviving apple trees, a French ancestor to many of the apple varieties we know and love today. Combining Todd Little-Siebold’s historical research and Cameron Peace’s genetic work, in this special interview the three of them are able to tell a story of this apple tree that is not unlike the story of many new species discoveries. 

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Drap d'Or Bretagne

New (Old) Species and cultivar: Drap d'Or Bretagne 

Maine Public Radio feature: https://www.mainepublic.org/maine/2025-06-02/on-verona-island-historians-discover-one-of-the-oldest-living-apple-trees-in-north-america

MOFGA press release:

https://www.mofga.org/news/apple-discovery-announcement/

Local news article (paywalled): 

https://www.bangordailynews.com/2025/05/04/homestead/gardening/one-of-north-americas-oldest-apple-trees-on-maine-island-joam40zk0w/

Learn more about MOFGA: mofga.org (See you at the Common Ground Country Fair!)

John’s website: outonalimbapples.com 

My Fruit Tree Project: myfruittree.org

Be sure to follow New Species on Bluesky (@newspeciespodcast.bsky.social) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast).

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast and enjoy bonus episodes, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

Think butterfly genomics is a simple topic? Think again, but this time think alongside Zac MacDonald and Julian Dupuis. Not only are they answering some of the most interesting contemporary conservation questions, but they’re doing so using a very curious butterfly as their model organism. “One of the difficult things with studying these kinds of butterflies….is we don't really understand fitness or adaptive value as well as we do in cougars or in foxes or in dogs or in other vertebrates that we've studied a lot more.” Julian says. “We don't really have these characteristic signals of, what does inbreeding depression look like? We just don't have that kind of information in butterflies.”

Listen in to learn about cutting edge genomics from certified self-described “crazy butterfly people” and expand your idea of what is possible in conservation.

Zac and Julian’s paper “Genomic and ecological divergence support recognition of a new species of endangered Satyrium butterfly (Lepidoptera, Lycaenidae)” is in volume 1234 of Zookeys. 

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1234.143893

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Zac Macdonald and Julian Dupuis - Transcript

New Species: Satyrium curiosolus

Episode image credit: MacDonald et. al (2025)

Follow Zac on instagram: @wild_about_the_wild_things

Another paper by Zac and Julian on the future of butterfly conservation: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mec.17657

Be sure to follow New Species on Bluesky (@newspeciespodcast.bsky.social) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast).

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast and enjoy bonus episodes, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

Deep-sea isopods come in all shapes and sizes, and Henry Knauber is excited to see all of them. In this paper, he and his coauthors describe five new species and redescribe another as part of a large expedition to examine the biodiversity of the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench region of the northwest Pacific Ocean. These new species are part of what he calls his “god complex,” a cluster of closely-related cryptic species he has spent much of his scientific career distinguishing and naming after Greek gods and mythical characters. Listen along as Henry describes a paper that is a culmination of years of work, and brings you deep into the sea to examine these amazing creatures in a new way.

Henry Knauber’s paper “Across trench and ridge: description of five new species of the Haploniscus belyaevi Birstein, 1963 species complex (Isopoda, Haploniscidae) from the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench region” is in volume 101 issue 2 of Zoosystematics and Evolution. 

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.3897/zse.101.137663

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Henry Knauber - Transcript

New Species: Haploniscus apaticus, Haploniscus erebus, Haploniscus hades, Haploniscus kerberos, and Haploniscus nyx.

Episode image credit: Henry Knauber

Check out Henry’s German Science Communication Platform called "Abyssarium" on Instagram: @abyss.arium

Also take a look at @oceanspecies on instagram for more work like Henry’s

Read part of Henry’s master’s thesis on the delineation of the Haploniscus belyaevi species complex: https://doi.org/10.1080/14772000.2022.2099477

A joyful deep-sea specimen encounter: coverage of the first footage of a Colossal Squid and an interview by Science Friday: https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/colossal-squid-video/

Be sure to follow New Species on Bluesky (@newspeciespodcast.bsky.social) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast).

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast and enjoy bonus episodes, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

“Serendipity is a real grabbing force of science,” says Léo Laborieux as he shares his experience describing his new species of scorpion. While at a remote research station in the Colombian rainforest, Léo found a handful of scorpions that exhibited a unique venom ‘flicking’ behavior. Armed only with his phone and a few basic supplies, Léo documented the behavior, diagnosed the scorpions as being a new species, and came to fascinating conclusions about venom biomechanics. In this episode he brings us deep into the world of scorpion venoms and shares his love of these creatures and their startling diversity.

Léo Laborieux’ paper “Biomechanics of venom delivery in South America’s first toxungen-spraying scorpion” is in the December 2024 edition of the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1093/zoolinnean/zlae161

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Léo Laborieux - Transcript

New Species: Tityus achilles

Episode image credit: Léo Laborieux

Léo’s first new species from a mountain near his hometown: https://doi.org/10.57800/faunitaxys-10(47)

Follow Léo on Instagram @lhommedesboas

Or connect on Bluesky @6legsandup.blsky.socialRead his papers on Researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Leo_Laborieux?ev=hdr_xprf

Scrappy Science: https://www.scrappyscience.org

Global Alliance of Community Science Workshops: https://www.communityscienceworkshops.org

Other scorpion episodes from this podcast:

Prakrit Jain

Javier Blasco-Aróstegui

Be sure to follow New Species on Bluesky (@newspeciespodcast.bsky.social) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast).

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast and enjoy bonus episodes, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

Begonias are known around the world as a plant of beauty and diversity. What can they teach us about the world around us? Through his work on Begonias and other flowering plants found in Northeast India, Professor Dipankar Borah sees the world differently. It’s not just for his own benefit though.

“Much of my time is spent making students aware of their surroundings,” He says. “We trek to forests, cook food from the wilderness, and then find joy in the simple yet profound experiences. Through these moments of exploration and laughter, I hope to rekindle their sense of wonder and then help them build the lasting bond with nature.”

In this episode, let Dr. Borah invite you with joy and wonder into the world of Begonias. 

Dipankar Borah’s paper “A new species Begonia ziroensis and a new record of Begonia siamensis from Arunachal Pradesh, Northeast India” is in volume 63 issue 1 of the New Zealand Journal of Botany.

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1080/0028825X.2023.2295439

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Dipankar Borah - Transcript

New Species: Begonia ziroensis

Episode image credit: Dipankar Borah 

Read more on Dipankar’s Researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dipankar-Borah

And Follow him on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dipu.borah2/

Be sure to follow New Species on Bluesky (@newspeciespodcast.bsky.social) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast).

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast and enjoy bonus episodes, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

For some people, a box of 100-year-old bee flies might seem daunting, but for Lisa Rollinson and Allan Cabrero, It was an exciting challenge. As part of a Smithsonian-based internship, Lisa worked with Allan to identify the flies, creating a new key for several genera and discovering a new species along the way.

Flies aren’t the most charismatic group, but Lisa sees them as an unexpected opportunity to introduce people to taxonomy. “I think science can be really good for getting people curious and getting them invested in things they don’t think about very often, like flies,” she says. “I think that people are often more scientific than they actually think.” Listen in for a great conversation about bee flies and making accessible taxonomic resources that will hopefully stand the test of time. Plus, learn the sweet naming decision that makes this new species the “Sister Bug.”

Lisa Rollinson and Allan Cabrero’s paper “Species discovery in Southern African bee flies (Diptera, Bombyliidae): A new species in the revised genus Enica (Macquart, 1834)” is in volume 66 Issue 1 of African Invertebrates.

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.3897/afrinvertebr.66.129611

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Lisa and Allan - Transcript

New Species: Enica adelphe

Episode image credit: Lisa Rollinson

Lucid Builder keys: https://keys.lucidcentral.org/keys/v4/enica

Follow Lisa on Twitter/X: @LisaRollinson5

Follow Allan on Instagram: @allan_the_entomologist

Be sure to follow New Species on Bluesky (@newspeciespodcast.bsky.social) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast).

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast and enjoy bonus episodes, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

Shantanu Joshi is fascinated with creatures of all kinds, but especially damselflies, the small quick fliers of the order Odonata. In this episode he takes us deep into the forests of Northeast India, a place of immense beauty and interfering colonial history. Undersampling and poor specimen quality are a few reasons the diversity of this area is not well known, and Shantanu and his coauthors are determined to fill in the gaps. As with his project The Odonata of India, Shantanu shares in incredible detail the morphology, ecology, and even behaviors of these two new species, and discusses what their presence means for two unique and isolated habitats.

Shantanu’s paper “Description of Protosticta khasia sp. nov. and Yunnanosticta siangi sp. nov., with new records of P. samtsensis from Northeast India” is in volume 5448 of Zootaxa. 

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5448.3.2

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Shantanu Joshi - Transcript

Check out Shantanu’s amazing website, Odonata of India: https://www.indianodonata.org/

And follow him on Instagram: @odonataofindia

New Species: Protosticta khasia and Yunnanosticta siangi

Episode image credit: Shantanu Joshi

Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast)

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast and enjoy bonus episodes, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

What if I told you that the oldest known biotic association of arthropods is a piece of Lebanese amber from the Cretaceous period? At the same time that flowering plants were diversifying, astigmatid mites were finding a very convenient way to get around: on the backs of termites. Can mites and termites be friends? How does one identify a tiny mite specimen without damaging its equally-important host? Learn the answers to these questions and more from Dr. Hemen Sendi on this episode of the New Species Podcast.

Hemen’s paper “The oldest continuous association between astigmatid mites and termites preserved in Cretaceous amber reveals the evolutionary significance of phoresy” is in volume 25 of BMC Ecology and Evolution. 

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12862-025-02351-5

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Hemen Sendi - Transcript

This work was supported by the EU NextGenerationEU through the Recovery and Resilience Plan for Slovakia under project No. 09I03-03-V04-00439.

New Species: Plesioglyphus lebanotermi

Episode image credit: Hemen Sendi

Be sure to follow New Species on Bluesky (@newspeciespodcast.bsky.social) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast).

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast and enjoy bonus episodes, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

Sunflowers come in all shapes and sizes, and the group has gained a new member. Nicknamed the “woolly devil,” Ovicula biradiata is the product of the amazing bi-national collaboration between taxonomists, conservationists, and community scientists in Big Bend National Park. But it comes at a time when the future of National Parks is uncertain.

“I think this particular discovery has inspired a lot of people outside of the world of biodiversity science to recognize that we still have a lot of work to do in terms of just describing the biodiversity in environments as iconic as the US National Parks” says Isaac Lichter Marck, one of the taxonomists involved in the description. “We assume that because it's found within a US national park that it'll be within an environment that's preserved into the future. That's been the ideal of national parks. But I think in the current reality we have to be cautious about that assumption.”

Listen in to learn more about Isaac and his work, the tremendous effort that went into this discovery, and what the future might look like for this little plant and others.

Isaac Lichter Marck’s paper “Ovicula biradiata, a new genus of Compositae from Big Bend National Park in Trans-Pecos Texas” is in issue 252 of Phytokeys

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.252.137624

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Isaac Lichter Marck - Transcript

New Species: Ovicula biradiata

Episode image credit: Cathy Hoyt

Other articles about this new species:

https://www.npr.org/2025/02/26/nx-s1-5308248/wooly-devil-new-species-genus-big-bend

https://www.nps.gov/bibe/learn/news/new-plant-species-discovered-in-big-bend.htm

Articles about cuts to National Parks staff and funding:

www.bbc.com/news/articles/czx7kez4vx2o

www.npr.org/2025/02/28/nx-s1-5304434/what-doge-cuts-could-mean-for-national-park-visitors

www.npca.org/articles/6614-five-ways-president-trump-s-executive-orders-could-harm-national-parks

Follow Isaac on social media:

Bluesky: @ca-naturalist.bsky.social

Instagram: California_naturalist

Twitter: @ca-naturalist

Be sure to follow New Species on Bluesky (@newspeciespodcast.bsky.social) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast).

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast and enjoy bonus episodes, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

Someone who identifies as a nature lover might not be excited to see trees cut down or large machines rolling across the forest floor. Science doesn’t always align with everyone’s expectations, and often scientists have to explain their work to audiences that aren’t interested or who don’t agree. Ethan Tapper has many of these conversations. Ethan works to manage Vermont forests sustainably and help them thrive, which often includes practices that might seem destructive or contrary to a forest’s best interests. Science is about communicating, and Ethan has worked hard to use communication as a tool to make caring for forests a community issue. 

What is the role of a scientist in explaining their work? How do we communicate unfamiliar scientific topics to people who already might have preconceived notions about them? These are some of the questions Ethan tackles in this episode. 

Ethan’s book can be found here, and wherever books are sold:

https://ethantapper.com/book

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Ethan Tapper - Transcript

Follow Ethan on Instagram, Youtube, Facebook, and TikTok: @howtoloveaforest

Be sure to follow New Species on Bluesky and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast), and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast)

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like free bonus episodes or would like to support the podcast, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

Amanda and I discuss and review Bats! (1999) 

Our ratings:

Enjoyability: 🦇 🦇 🦇 🦇

Accuracy: 🦇🦇 🦇 🦇 🦇

This episode is the first in a new bonus series where I watch B-list horror movies with scientists and we rate them on accuracy and enjoyability.

All episodes are free, for future episodes you will just have to sign up through Patreon at Patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod. If you choose to support the podcast with a paid subscription, it is really appreciated! My 2025 goal is to cover the cost of hosting the website (about $80/year) which would be $7/month.

Amanda is a PhD candidate at Portland State University specializing in bat ecology and evolution. You can find her work here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Amanda-Grunwald
Listen to her New Species Podcast episode: https://www.newspeciespodcast.net/all-episodes/a-new-bat-with-amanda-grunwald

On an expedition to Madagascar, Matjaž Gregorič and his research team came upon a damaged termite nest that had a few other invertebrate visitors. When they experimentally damaged the nest again, they found two unexpected things: spiders ballooning in to prey on the termites as they rebuilt, and hopeful ants standing by to steal termites from those spiders. It created what the authors called “a perilous Malagasy triad”, a three-way predator-prey-kleptoparasite interaction that tells a very interesting story about chemical signaling and arthropod behavior. As a bonus, they identified the spider involved as a brand new genus and species, named Vigdisia praesidens to honor Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, Iceland’s first female president. Listen in as researcher Matjaž Gregorič gives us the full story, as well as his thoughts on why it’s important to pursue science for science’s sake.

Matjaž Gregorič’s paper “A perilous Malagasy triad: a spider (Vigdisia praesidens, gen. and sp. nov.) and an ant compete for termite food” is in the July 14th issue of New Zealand Journal of Zoology. 

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1080/03014223.2024.2373185

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Matjaž Gregorič - Transcript

New Species: Vigdisia praesidens

More on Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, the world’s first democratically-elected female president (Iceland, 1980-1996): https://www.councilwomenworldleaders.org/vigdiacutes-finnbogadoacutettir.html

An article about this paper: https://www.icelandreview.com/news/new-spider-species-named-after-icelandic-president/

Videos of the kleptoparasitic behavior: https://www.youtube.com/@ezlab7631/videos

Episode image credit: Matjaž Gregorič

Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast)

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

Rodrigo’s paper “Idiopyrgus Pilsbry, 1911 (Gastropoda, Tomichiidae): a relict genus radiating into subterranean environments” is in November 8th issue of Zoosystematics and Evolution

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.3897/zse.100.136428

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Rodrigo Salvador - Transcript

Follow Rodrigo on X/Bluesky: @Kraken_Scholar and @krakenscholar.bsky.social

Follow the Journal of Geek Studies on X/Bluesky:@JGeekStudies and @jgeekstudies.bsky.social

New Species: Idiopyrgus eowynae, Idiopyrgus meriadoci

Episode image credit: Rodrigo Salvador

Journal of Geek Studies: https://jgeekstudies.org/

Pensoft article, “The Snellowship of the Ring”: https://blog.pensoft.net/2024/11/11/the-shellowship-of-the-ring-two-new-snail-species-named-after-tolkien-characters/

Be sure to follow New Species on Bluesky (@newspeciespodcast.bsky.social) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast)

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

What happens when a hymenopterist finds a mysterious arachnid in a Danish hothouse? Sean Birk Bek Craig was exploring the floor of a hothouse, also known as a greenhouse, when he came upon an interesting creature. “I could see that it was an arachnid when I looked up close,” he said, “but immediately just looking at it with my eyes… I was really perplexed about what the devil that was!” Short-tailed whip-scorpions, or members of the order Schizomida, are tiny arachnids who aren’t typically in Denmark, but with a lot of research, Sean concluded it had probably been accidentally imported on one of the tropical plants, possibly from Thailand. With a few ups and downs, Sean described it as his very first new species, and gave it a specific epithet of “serendipitus” after the unexpected way it came into his life.

Sean’s paper “First records of the order Schizomida from tropical hothouses in Denmark: Stenochrus portoricensis and a new species of Bamazomus (Schizomida: Hubbardiidae)” is in issue 67 of Arachnology Letters. 

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.30963/aramit6707

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Sean Birk Bek Craig - Transcript

New Species: Bamazomus serendipitus

Episode image credit: Sean Birk Bek Craig

Find Sean on X/Twitter: @BekBirk

Read the paper describing Materia boggildi: https://bioone.org/journals/arachnology/volume-19/issue-6/arac.2023.19.6.888/A-new-Masteria-Araneae--Dipluridae-from-tropical-hothouses-in/10.13156/arac.2023.19.6.888.short

Read the paper that nearly made Sean’s new species a synonym:

https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/121754/

Read the paper describing a new Schizomid genus from Germany:

https://arages.de/10.5431/aramit4906

Read Abrams’ paper “Too Hot to Handle”: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1055790319301824

Enjoy the World Schizomida Catalog: https://wac.nmbe.ch/order/schizomida/5

Read Matty’s thesis on biologists: https://research.ku.dk/search/result/?pure=en/publications/for-the-love-of-the-living(049e101d-c89d-472f-ba7a-f7a62e8337a4).html

Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast)

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

In this episode, Danniella Sherwood brings us two new pseudoscorpions from Ascension Island, one of the most remote islands in the world. Ascension’s ecological history is full of many twists and turns, and it is home to amazing biodiversity that is in desperate need of conservation. Danni and her team worked together to address this need, producing a paper titled ‘David and Goliath’ with one very small and one very large new species. They also provide new faunistic records, or records that show that Ascension and the nearby Boatswain Bird Island are home to stunning endemic pseudoscorpion diversity.

One of my favorite things about Danni’s story is the emphasis she places on teamwork. “It takes a village to produce good research,” She says. “it takes a village to work towards visions of conserving invertebrates in their habitats. You need to have people from all fields, all specialties, all viewpoints in order to make something that’s really impactful, really lasting and enduring to the fields of conservation and ecology and taxonomy.” Listen to this episode for a meaningful story of teamwork and community, and to learn the importance of taxonomy’s role in conserving island flora and fauna. 

Danniella Sherwood’s paper “David and Goliath: on the pseudoscorpions of Ascension Island, including the world’s largest, Garypus titanius Beier, 1961, and a new, minute, Neocheiridium Beier, 1932 (Arachnida: Pseudoscorpiones)” is in issue 42 of Natura Somogyienis.

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.24394/NatSom.2024.42.131

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Danni Sherwood 2 - Transcript

Listen to Danni’s other New Species episode about St. Helenian wolf spiders: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0o8dL8yEpRiFtMO1gVNjkc?si=c068e5d3b6fb40f7

New Species: Garypus ellickae and Neocheiridium ashmoleorum 

Episode image credit: Adam Sharp

Follow the Ascension Island Government Conservation Directorate here:

https://www.facebook.com/AscensionIslandConservation

https://twitter.com/aigconservation

Follow Danni’s research on all manner of arachnids here:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Danniella-Sherwood

Follow the Species Recovery Trust:

https://www.facebook.com/TheSpeciesRecoveryTrust/

https://www.twitter.com/speciesrecovery

Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast)

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

This paper started because Chloé Löis Fourreau and Marcos Teixeira were both too sick to dive during a NEON (National Ecological Observatory Network) bioblitz expedition in the Red Sea. Hoping to at least collect something, they swam to the shoreline and began snorkeling in the shallow water. When they began turning over rocks, what felt like a wasted day turned into an amazing intertidal discovery. In this episode, Chloé and Marcos are joined by their colleague Juan Sempere-Valverde to tell the exciting story of their new segmented polychaete worm, and to encourage everyone to pay attention to annelids and the great value they bring to science. 

Just a quick disclaimer for this episode, for some reason my primary recording didn’t save so i’m using the backup. As a result the quality is not great, and for that I really apologize! A reminder that every episode has a transcript (below) so please use that to aid in any hard-to-hear parts.

Chloé Löis Fourreau, Marcos A.L. Teixeira, and Juan Sempere-Valverde’s paper “Two new records and description of a new Perinereis (Annelida, Nereididae) species for the Saudi Arabian Red Sea region” is in volume 1196 of Zookeys.

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1196.115260

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Chloé Löis Fourreau, Marcos Teixeira, and Juan Sempere-Valverde - Transcript

New Species: Perinereis kaustiana

Episode image credit: Juan Sempere-Valverde

New Species: Perinereis kaustiana

Episode image credit: Juan Sempere-Valverde

Follow Chloé on Twitter: ChaoticChloeia

Follow Juan on Instagram: @bem_lab and @zoologiaus

Read Marcos’ recent paper: https://doi.org/10.1080/14772000.2022.2116124

Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast)

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

Louis Nastasi has a deep love of wasps, and a particular fascination with Cynipid wasps, gall wasps that can specialize on just a few plants or even a single species. In this episode he tells us about their diversity and the tangled phylogenies he works on, and answers the question his paper poses; “Cryptic or underworked?” There’s so much we don’t know about gall wasps, and it has so many implications for conservation, agriculture, and more!

Louis Nastasi’s paper “Cryptic or underworked? Taxonomic revision of the Antistrophus rufus species complex (Cynipoidea, Aulacideini)” is in volume 97 of the Journal of Hymenoptera Research. 

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.3897/jhr.97.121918

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Louis Nastasi - Transcript

New Species: Antistrophus laurenae

Episode image credit: Antoine Guiguet

Send Louis a Silphium plant gall! Email him at: LFN5093@psu.edu

Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast)

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod. Bonus episodes are coming soon!

What can tiny, flightless beetles tell us about the history of mountain geography and climate? It turns out, quite a bit! In this episode, Dr. Adam Haberski introduces us to the wild world of Staphylinid beetles, some of the most diverse creatures on the planet. We learn about the joys (and pitfalls) of collecting in the Southern Appalachians, as well as their billion-year-old history and the amazing beetle lineages that they helped shape. 

Adam Haberski’s paper “A review of Nearctic Lathrobium (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae), with revision and descriptions of new flightless species from the mountains of the southeastern U.S.” is in volume 1198 of Zookeys. 

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1198.118355

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Adam Haberski - Transcript

New Species: Lathrobium balsamense, Lathrobium camplyacra, Lathrobium islae, Lathrobium lividum, Lathrobium smokiense, Lathrobium absconditum, Lathrobium hardeni, Lathrobium lapidum, Lathrobium solum, and Lathrobium thompsonorum

Episode image credit: Mike Caterino

Check out Adam’s amazing photography on instagram: @alaskamacro

Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast)

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

In part 3 of Taxonomy Basics, Marc Milne of the University of Indianapolis tells us all about the process of identifying and publishing new species. He has tips and tricks for microscope work, finding online resources, and many other facets of the description process.

Marc is a spider taxonomist and ecologist who specializes in several different groups including Linyphiids and Nesticids. He is also a professor of Biology, and teaches classes that include ecology and genetics. 

Taxonomy Basics is a three part series on basic components of species description including collecting, preserving, and describing new species. This series focuses on entomological specimens, but has concepts that work across disciplines. Listen in as Evan Waite, Ashleigh Whiffin, and Marc Milne share their guidelines and discuss important concepts in taxonomy, curation, and beyond. 

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Marc Milne - Transcript

Episode image credit: Marshal Hedin

Follow Marc on twitter: @forthespiders

Resources mentioned in this episode include: 

The World Spider Catalog: https://wsc.nmbe.ch/

Spiders of North America: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691175614/spiders-of-north-america

Salticidae of the World: https://www.jumping-spiders.com/

American Arachnological Society Website State-by-State Guide: https://www.americanarachnology.org/about-arachnids/arachnid-orders/

LinEpig: https://linepig.fieldmuseum.org/

All Bugs Go to Kevin (Facebook Group): https://www.facebook.com/groups/AllBugsGoToKevin

iNaturalist: www.iNaturalist.org

BugGuide: https://bugguide.net/

Some scientists to learn from online:

The Bug Chicks: https://www.thebugchicks.com/

Entomologia Asturias (Christian Pertegal): https://www.twitch.tv/entomologiaasturias

Entomology Abby: https://www.instagram.com/entomologyabby/?hl=en

Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast)

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

In part 2 of Taxonomy Basics, Ashleigh Whiffin of National Museums Scotland brings us into the entomology collection to learn the fundamentals of curation and preservation, including which pins to use, the importance of collection data, and much more.

Ashleigh is responsible for the care and development of a collection of 2.5 million insect specimens. She is particularly interested in collections care and science communication, and is a coleopterist, specializing in Carrion beetles (Silphidae). In the UK, she works with the Biological Records Centre to co-organise a National Recording Scheme for Carrion Beetles, promoting the importance of the group and encouraging more people to record them. In 2020, she co-authored an atlas on Silphids and Histerids and has featured on national TV, sharing her passion for these beetles.

Ashleigh recently helped develop a new training resource hosted on the National Museums Scotland website:

https://www.nms.ac.uk/about-us/our-services/training-and-guidance-for-museums/caring-for-entomology-collections/ 

This self-guided resource is an introduction to Caring for Entomology Collections, covering the basics through a combination of videos and text, as well as links for where to go for additional information. 

Taxonomy Basics is a three part series on basic components of species description including collecting, preserving, and describing new species. This series focuses on entomological specimens, but has concepts that work across disciplines. Listen in as Evan Waite, Ashleigh Whiffin, and Marc Milne share their guidelines and discuss important concepts in taxonomy, curation, and beyond. 

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Ashleigh Whiffin - Transcript

Episode image credit: Molly Wilders

Connect with Ashleigh on Instagram/Threads: @ash_whiffin

X: @AshWhiffin

BlueSky: @ashwhffin.bsky.social

More info here: https://www.nms.ac.uk/collections-research/collections-departments/natural-sciences/meet-the-team/ashleigh-whiffin/ 

Places to be involved in virtual curation and other citizen science projects:

https://www.zooniverse.org/

https://scistarter.org/

https://transcription.si.edu/

Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast)

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

In part 1 of Taxonomy Basics, Evan Waite from Arizona State University teaches us all about collecting entomological specimens. From which traps to use to tips on sharing your collection with others, Evan gives us all of the details with some great stories along the way.

Evan is a coleopterist and PhD Candidate at Arizona State University. His work focuses on ground beetles, but he’s broadly interested in beetle diversity and has a personal collection that includes over 2,000 specimens from all across the arthropod world. His collecting and taxonomic work has taken him across the country to many unique habitats, as well as a variety of entomological collections. 

Taxonomy Basics is a three part series on basic components of species description including collecting, preserving, and describing new species. This series focuses on entomological specimens, but has concepts that work across disciplines. Listen in as Evan Waite, Ashleigh Wiffin, and Marc Milne share their guidelines and discuss important concepts in taxonomy, curation, and beyond. 

Connect with Evan online: @Evantomology on all platforms

Read Evan’s paper about collecting bias, including a case study:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10323768/

Watch Evan’s talk “A Journey from Bugs to Birds” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asZWkrmAXZ4&t=3s

Chris Grinter’s website with a guide to collecting permits:

https://www.theskepticalmoth.com/collecting-permits/

UC Davis guide: How to Collect Insects: https://bohart.ucdavis.edu/how-collect-insects

A transcript of this episode can be found here:

Evan Waite - Transcript

Episode image credit: Evan Waite

Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast)

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

“Another spider paper?!” you might ask. “More new spiders, what’s so interesting?” Well in addition to a revised genus and three new species, Adrià Bellvert and Miquel Arnedo’s most recent publication highlights some of the unique challenges taxonomists deal with as they work to untangle species relationships. “I think that the important part [of this paper] is it interfaces very well, it summarizes very well the kind of problems that.. we have to address when we are trying to understand the diversity of mega diverse groups,” says Miquel. Things like deteriorated specimens, missing label information, and difficulty collecting also contribute. But by the end of their story we see that time, effort, and collaboration can bring about some really important findings.

Miquel and Adrià’s paper “Integrating museum collections and molecules reveals genus-level synonymy and new species in red devil spiders (Araneae, Dysderidae) from the Middle East and Central Asia” is in volume 921 of the Journal of European Taxonomy

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.5852/ejt.2024.921.2429

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Adrià Bellvert and Miquel Arnedo - Transcript

New Species: Dysdera jaegeri, Dysdera naouelae, and Dysdera kourosh

Episode image credit: Adrià Bellvert

You can follow Adrià and Miquel on Twitter: @AdriaBellvert and @spidersysevo (Miquel’s lab)

Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast)

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

Skinks are one of the most diverse families of lizards, and Ishan Agarwal studies skinks in India, one of the most biodiverse countries in the world. From the forest to the lab to the museum, Ishan shares his experiences investigating a group of cryptic skinks that had quite a few surprises to share, including biology and behavior. What is it about skinks that makes them so captivating? How and why do scientists designate neotypes? Why is a slingshot part of a skink-catching field kit? Find out in this episode of the New Species Podcast.

Read Ishan’s paper here: https://doi.org/10.3897/vz.74.e110674

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Ishan Agarwal - Transcript

New Genus: Dravidoseps

New Species: Dravidoseps gingeeensis, Dravidoseps jawadhuensis, Dravidoseps kalakadensis, Dravidoseps srivilliputhurensis, and Dravidoseps tamilnaduensis. 

Episode image courtesy of Ishan Agarwal

Follow Ishan on Instagram: @Geckoella

Dropbox link to Ishan's papers: https://www.dropbox.com/home/Public/IA%20publications

Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast)

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

Mike Stephan is a lawyer obsessed with scientific etymology, specifically tautonyms, binomial names in which the generic name and species name are exactly the same. Scientific naming conventions and customs have a rich history, and as Mike says, “[taxonomic names] in some perhaps unintended way tell the greater story of human anthropology and history.” Come along for the ride as we discuss etymologies of all shapes, sizes, and redundancies and learn a little about people along the way. 

Order Mike’s book: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/tautonyms-michael-j-stephan/1143958127?ean=9798350910759

Read Mike’s recent paper proposing that botany allow tautonyms:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/tax.12902

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Mike Stephan - Transcript

Interview with Stefano Mammola about spider names: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/jxWszZc24Hb

Interview with Alireza Zamani about a new species named after Brian: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/VhSS5Lf24Hb

Follow Mike on Instagram (and submit your draw-tonym): @Tautonyms 

Episode image courtesy of Mike Stephan

Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast)

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

There are no snakes in Alaska, so what’s that snakelike shape crossing the road? Few people would guess it’s actually thousands of fly larvae moving in a very peculiar pattern that gives the snakeworm gnat their common name. Dr. Thalles Pereira and his coauthors spent lots of time rearing, observing, and sharing their findings with their community in the process of describing this new species, and use citizen science data of this behavior in addition to morphological and molecular analyses in this paper. Listen in as Thalles brings us through the labs and back roads of Alaska to learn why gnats are so special!

Thalles Pereira’s paper “Discovery of snakeworm gnats in Alaska: a new species of Sciara meigen (Diptera: Sciaridae) based on morphological, molecular, and citizen science data” is in volume 6 issue 2 of Integrative Systematics.

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.18476/2023.673937

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Thalles Pereira - Transcript

New Species: Sciara serpens

Episode image courtesy of Thalles Pereira via Integrative Systematics Stuttgart Contributions to Natural History

Check out Thalles’ Researchgate profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Thalles-Pereira-2

Video of the snakeworm larval behavior: https://doi.org/10.7299/X7WM1DQ9

View these specimens and their observational records on Arctos: https://arctos.database.museum/search.cfm?guid_prefix=UAM%3AEnto%2CUAMObs%3AEnto&scientific_name=Sciara%20serpens&scientific_name_match_type=match&family=Sciaridae

Springtail antifreeze protein paper: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-60060-z

Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast)

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

This is a short episode to share some thoughts and feedback from this year's New Species community survey, as well as some updates on what is to come for the podcast.

Take the community survey here before March 1st: https://forms.gle/ayoZfXzadr2kd3st5

Check out our Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

And the Website:

www.newspeciespodcast.net

Who wouldn’t want to receive thousands of millipedes in the mail? When Dr. Henrik Enghoff does it’s through his partnership with FoRCE, the Forest Restoration and Climate Experiment, a group researching tropical forest dynamics and their relationship with things like human disturbance and climate change. They collect millipedes through their field season and Henrik identifies them to increase our knowledge of millipede systematics. In this interview he shares stories about the diversity of millipedes, the exciting world of scanning electron microscopy, and why it’s important to care about creatures that others might pass by. 

Henrik Enghoff’s paper “A mountain of millipedes XI. The trachystreptoform spirostreptids of the Udzungwa Mountains, Tanzania” is in volume 918 of the European Journal of Taxonomy.

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.5852/ejt.2024.918.2405

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Henrik Enghoff - Transcript

New Genus: Udzungwastreptus

New Species: Attemsostreptus cataractae,  Attemsostreptus leptoptilos,  Attemsostreptus julostriatus, Lophostreptus magombera, Udzungwastreptus marianae

Episode image credit: A.R. Marshall

Learn more about FoRCE: https://force-experiment.com/

And project DiSSCo: www.dissco.eu

Other recent papers by Henrik and his team:

A new distinct, disjunct giant millipede of the genus Spirostreptus from Tanzania, and a solution for orphaned Spirostreptus species – Zootaxa https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5389.2.9

A new species of Lophostreptus Cook, 1895 discovered among syntypes of L. regularis  - Zookeys https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1188.115802

Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and like the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast)

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod