New Species

Shasta Henry, a Ph.D. candidate in entomology in the Discipline of Geography and Spatial Science at the University of Tasmania, is my guest! We discuss the significance of the name given to this new species, why it took 79 years to give this new species a name, how they shoot defensive stuff from their butts, and the importance of cockroaches in natural environments!

The title of the paper is “Polyzosteria cockroaches in Tasmania (Blattodea: Blattidae: Polyzosteriinae) represent a new, endemic species, with allopatric alpine and coastal sub-populations.” The paper is published in Zootaxa: https://www.mapress.com/j/zt/article/view/zootaxa.4926.3.4

To learn more about Shasta Henry, you can follow her on Twitter and Instagram, @hybopterashasta. To learn more about Tasmanian Aboriginal names, you can visit http://tacinc.com.au/official-aboriginal-and-dual-names/. To get a copy of this paper, contact Shasta through Research Gate, here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349156779_Polyzosteria_cockroaches_in_Tasmania_Blattodea_Blattidae_Polyzosteriinae_represent_a_new_endemic_species_with_allopatric_alpine_and_coastal_sub-populations

Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies), like the podcast page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast), and music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom).

If you would like to support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPodcast

Our guest for this episode, Dr. Michael Sharkey, is a Professor Emeritus. He talks to us about his paper published February 2nd in ZooKeys wherein he describes 403—yes, 403!!!—new species of braconid parasitoid wasps from Costa Rica! Dr. Sharkey explains to us what a braconid wasp is, what a parasitoid is, how he and his coauthors could find 403 new species for a single paper, how to come up with so many names for so many species, and why we all need to know more about these amazing little wasps!

The title of the paper is “Minimalist revision and description of 403 new species in 11 subfamilies of Costa Rican braconid parasitoid wasps, including host records for 219 species.” The paper is available free as Open Access: https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/55600/element/8/2105//

To learn more about Dr. Sharkey, visit his webpage at http://www.sharkeylab.org/sharkeylab/MainPage.html.

Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies), like the podcast page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast), and music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom).

If you would like to support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPodcast

Our guest for this episode, Dr. Rosemary Gillespie, is a professor of Environmental Science, Policy & Management, professor in the Division of Insect Biology, and Director of the Essig Museum of Entomology at the University of California - Berkeley. She talks to us about her paper that will be published in the next issue of Invertebrate Systematics wherein she and her coauthors describe *eight* new species of Happy Face spiders from Hawaii. We talk about why these spiders are called Happy Face spiders, how they got to Hawaii, and why they are important in the Hawaiian ecosystem.

The title of the paper is “A happy family: systematic revision of the endemic Theridion spiders of the Hawaiian Islands” The paper is available free as Open Access through the month of February at https://www.publish.csiro.au/IS/IS20001.

To learn more about Dr. Gillespie, follow her on Twitter @Berkeley_Evolab or Instagram berkeley.evolab, or find her at https://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/faculty/rosemary-g-gillespie. Follow first author on the paper, Adrià Bellvert, on Twitter @AdriaBellvert, or follow the senior author, Dr. Miquel Arnedo, on Twitter @MiquelArnedo. You can also follow Dr. Arnedo’s lab on Twitter @spidersysevo.

Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies), like the podcast page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast), and music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom).

If you would like to support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPodcast

Our guest for this episode, Dr. Adam Cossette, is a vertebrate paleontologist and an Assistant Professor of Anatomy working in the College of Osteopathic Medicine at the New York Institute of Technology in Jonesboro, Arkansas.  Dr. Cossette talks to us about his recent description of a 60 million year old fossil that is a new species of “alligator,” Bottosaurus fustidens. We talk about how this fossil from Texas was found in an Iowa museum collection, how fossils form, why calling this an “alligator” isn’t technically correct, how the new species got its name, and how a vertebrate paleontologist becomes an anatomy professor for medical students. 

The paper was published in the January issue of the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, and the title of the paper is “A new species of Bottosaurus (Alligatoroidea: Caimaninae) from the Black Peaks Formation (Palaeocene) of Texas indicates an early radiation of North American caimanines.”  You can see the abstract of the paper at https://academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/article-abstract/191/1/276/5815831?redirectedFrom=fulltext, or contact Dr. Cossette through his university profile page and ask for a copy that he assure me he is willing to give you for free! https://www.nyit.edu/bio/acossett 

Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies), like the podcast page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast), and music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom). 

If you would like to support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPodcast 

Our guest for this episode, Dr. Gonzalo Giribet, is an invertebrate biologist working at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard, where he is Curator of Invertebrates and Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. Gonzalo is the first author of a recent paper about four new species of daddy long legs (also called harvestmen or opilionids) from New Caledonia! We learn that these harvestmen are—at the most—only a couple of millimeters long, how new species are named, and why we should care about new species—even ones that are so small!

The paper was published in Invertebrate Systematics (Vol 35, pages 59-89), with the title "A revised phylogeny of the New Caledonian endemic genus Troglosiro (Opiliones: Cyphophthalmi: Troglosironidae) with the description of four new species." The paper may be viewed here, and downloaded for free for the month of February, 2021: https://www.publish.csiro.au/IS/IS20042

For more information about Dr. Giribet, you can follow him on Twitter (@ggiribet), visit his website (https://oeb.harvard.edu/people/gonzalo-giribet), or read about him on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzalo_Giribet)!

Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies), like the podcast page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast), and music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom).

If you would like to support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPodcast

Our guest for this episode, Dr. Mark Scherz, is one of the authors of a recent paper about a new genus (!!) of tiny frogs, Nanohyla, from Southeast Asia, the "pygmy narrow-mouthed frogs."  We learn about these amazing frogs that are 10 - 15 millimeters (about a half inch) long, get to listen to the call of a possibly new species of frog, and talk with Dr. Scherz about how to decide that a new genus is needed for this group of frogs.  Additionally, Dr. Scherz discusses why it's important for people to know about these frogs, and some possible applications of the knowledge of such tiny animals may provide!  

The paper was published in Zoosystematics and Evolution (Vol 97(1), pages 21-54), with the title "Consequences of parallel miniaturisation in Microhylinae (Anura, Microhylidae), with the description of a new genus of diminutive South East Asia frogs." The paper may be viewed and downloaded for free (open access) here: https://zse.pensoft.net/article/57968/  

You can follow Dr. Scherz on Twitter (@MarkScherz) or visit his website (http://www.markscherz.com), and follow his podcast, Squamates (@SquaMatesPod), on Twitter, or visit his podcast website, squamatespod.com.  

Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies), like the podcast page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast), and music in the Introduction of this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom).  

If you would like to support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPodcast