Month: February 2016

I developed a competition for the public to name a new beetle species from Peru to raise awareness about species discoveries, biodiversity awareness, and the obscure science of taxonomy. The competition closes tomorrow! I look forward to seeing the submissions.  The idea for this unusual outreach campaign grew from my interest to raise awareness about…

Or more precisely, “God has an inordinate fondness for stars and beetles.”  That is the supposed answer of J.B.S. Haldane, the British evolutionary biologist, to the theological question, “What could be concluded about the Creator from the study of creation?” S/He had a special place for beetles, if S/He created more than 400,000 species of beetles. O…

Today is remarkable as an extraordinary paper for me on the San Bushman arrow poison beetles was finally published. The idea of this research was sparked in the back of a lecture room, at the annual meeting of the Entomological Society of America. Two colleagues asked about the leaf beetles supposedly used by African bushmen.…