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Undergraduates in my field courses have helped collect many new insect species in Peru and the description and naming process can bring attention to biodiversity and conservation.  One of the new species, Phytotelmatrichis osopaddington Darby & Chaboo, or the Paddington beetle is one of the tiniest beetles in the world at >1 mm (see my previous blog, April 6 2016).…

Furry mammals are the most common animals that Humans have domesticated. The first pet dogs (about 15,000 years ago), then cats (about 8000 years ago), and the many diverse farm animals around the world changed the course of human history. Strangely, insects are the most common animal on Earth and yet so few have been domesticated. If you think…

Dr. Jean-Michel Maes is an entomologist colleague who moved from Belgium to Nicaragua in 1983. He has become a formidable one-man biodiversity specialist, teacher, expert of numerous insect groups, and curator of Museo Entomologico de Leon, which he established……In other words, Jean-Michel is attempting to duplicate the effort of INBio in Costa Rica and STRI in…

“Why do you have to wear words [on your T-shirt], Milo?” “Names are important.” “These aren’t names.” [courage, persist, seek, freedom, relentless] “Every word is a name.” “How do you figure?” “Every word names an object, an action, a quality, a quantity, a condition …” “So, why are names important?” “Nothing could be more important.”…

The beetle family Ptiliidae is a marvel of evolutionary miniaturization.  Adults are less than 2 mm long and distinguished by the reduced hind wings, a narrow blade fringed with long hairs. These unusual hind wings are still capable of directed flight, like their larger beetle relatives, but detailed morphological study may reveal many other details of miniaturization.…

After news of my Africa San arrow poison paper went viral on the internet — coverage in several journals, newspapers, online news sites, etc. — I was contacted for interviews by journalists in different organizations.  One interview was with Mongabay, the large environmental news agency (http://www.mongabay.com/). It is my first stop for news around the world, but I get a…

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.…