New Species

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.

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. 

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.

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.

How many nature enthusiasts can relate to this scenario: you’re watching the landscape go by as you drive, and suddenly you see an area that could be favorable habitat for your target species. Stop the car! That’s what Prakrit Jain did, and it helped him and his coauthors describe a new species of Paruroctonus scorpion from the San Joaquin Valley. So much makes this scorpion interesting, from the unique and at-risk habitat it occupies to the fascinating story of its description. Why describe new species? Prakrit says it best: “Because if this scorpion can get conservation attention then it doesn’t just save the scorpion it saves everything that lives alongside it, and that might be thousands of different species.” 

Prakrit Jain’s paper “A new species of alkali-sink Paruroctonus Werner, 1934 (Scorpiones, Vaejovidae) from California’s San Joaquin Valley” is in issue 1185 of Zookeys.

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1185.103574

Southern Africa is home to over 1,200 species of irises, and if that number doesn’t blow you away, hearing Dr. John Manning’s speak about his new species certainly will. In this fascinating episode we are taken on a deep dive into Iridaceae’s stunning pollinator-driven diversity, evolution over millions of years and several continents, and the critical role of herbaria as the backbone of science past, present, and future. “They look static, and they look like dead plant specimens,” John says, “but they represent a great deal of life.”

Dr. John Manning’s Paper, “Moraea saxatilis, a new montane species from the Groot Winterhoek Wilderness Area of the Cape Floristic Region, South Africa” is in volume 165 of the South African journal of Botany.

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sajb.2023.12.008

Dr. Catalina Romero-Ortiz has been fascinated by pseudoscorpions for over a decade, and she wants everyone to understand how amazing they are. But beyond inherent scientific value, Catalina wants to share the importance of taxonomy in and out of the lab. She says, “As scientists, all of us are called to- there are some things that don’t work, you know? I think we [hold] in our shoulders much of the social responsibility… we are agents of change. And we need it.”

In this episode, Catalina speaks with conviction about the role taxonomy plays in changing the world for the better. She and her coauthors name their new genus using the prefix ‘pax,’ meaning peace, to commemorate the Havana Peace Talks in 2012 which brought together participants in Colombia’s civil war with the goal of uniting towards a more peaceful future. 

Catalina Romero-Ortiz’s paper “A new genus and five new species of pseudoscorpions from Colombia” is in issue 1184 of Zookeys.

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1184.106698

What do glaciers and scorpions have in common? They’re the focus of Javier Blasco-Aróstegui’s paper in which he and his coauthor describe a new species from the foothills of Mount Olympus. It’s an area home to many legends, and also a surprising amount of biodiversity due to its unique topography. When a large-scale change in habitat restricts gene flow, it can result in species that are very different from their relatives and Javier has found one of those species. “Okay,” he remembers saying about the first specimen, “we’ve got something new and cool here.”

Javier Blasco-Aróstegui’s paper “Glacial Relicts? A New Scorpion from Mount Olympus, Greece” is in the November 9th issue of American Museum Novitates. 

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1206/4003.1

When researchers talk about species disappearing before we can discover them, they’re talking about species like Javier Lobon-Rovira’s new gecko. With a specific and rapidly fragmenting habitat, this species of Paroedura might have left the world as an unknown cryptic species.

“My goal in my life,” Javier tells us, “is not to describe new species… but when you describe new species and you put it on an evolutionary frame, you can provide the grounds to better understand how the species distributed in the space and in the time, and which factors that are involved have some implication in the diversification pattern of the species that is completely needed to keep the natural selection or the continued evolution of the species to survive.”

Thanks to everyone who gave feedback on episode length - this episode ended up being short and sweet, but in the future we will have longer episodes, closer to 45 minutes.

Javier Lobon-Rovira’s paper “Another step through the crux: a new microendemic rock-dwelling Paroedura (Squamata, Gekkonidae) from south-central Madagascar” is in volume 1181 of Zookeys.

The island of Saint Helena can’t be described without the word special. It’s a small territory in the south Atlantic that is home to some of the most unique biodiversity in the world, including some extremely rare cloud forest spiders. An island full of spiders might not sound exciting for some, but to Danniella Sherwood it’s a dream! Listen in as Danni tells us all about the island and its history, the wolf spiders that find their home there, and the amazing community that supported and guided her work. 

Danni Sherwood’s paper “Saint Helenian wolf spiders, with description of two new genera and three new species (Araneae: Lycosidae)” is in volume 19 issue 5 of Arachnology. 

On this podcast we talk a lot about natural history collections. In fact, a spot (or more) of collections work is pretty much required to describe a new species. But what actually counts as a natural history collection? How many are there in the world? And what happens to all of that juicy data waiting in the stacks to be worked on? Dr. Makenzie Mabry has some of those answers and more. We talk about all of the different types of information that can be associated with specimens, the different resources researchers and non-researchers can use to access it, as well as some of the strengths and challenges to the way we build, use, and share museum data.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

You’ve got to hand it to leaf insects; their camouflage is so well-refined that studying them is difficult and collecting them is near-impossible. A sub-group of stick insects, members of the family Phylliidae have evolved to leaf like the best of them, even going so far as to uptake leaf pigments to match their colors. In order to study these creatures, Royce Cumming had to visit and take loans from collections all over the world, looking at historic specimens often found only because a passing storm had knocked them out of the canopy. 

But Royce is not deterred. He and his coauthors are organizing and describing Phylliids in order to make studying them more approachable, and to help people better appreciate their uniqueness. Listen in as he describes identifying and reclassifying leaf insects, pulling us into their strange and beautiful world. 

Royce Cumming’s paper “On seven undescribed leaf insect species revealed within the recent “Tree of Leaves” (Phasmatodea, Phylliidae)” is in issue 1173 of Zookeys.

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1173.104413

New Species: Phyllium iyadaon, Phyllium samarense, Phyllium ortizi, Pulchriphyllium heracles, Pulchriphyllium delislei, Pulchriphyllium bhaskarai, Pulchriphyllium anangu

Episode image was taken by Ashwin Viswanathan via iNaturalist and is used with permission by Royce Cumming

Follow Royce on Instagram: @RoyceCumming

Mysmenopsis is a tiny spider genus that has been shaped by women; women have collected, identified, and described the majority of members of the genus. In fact, Dr. Nadine Dupérré alone described 25 species, almost half of the genus’ known diversity. So it’s fitting, Cláudia Xavier explains, that her five new species are named after women, including Dupérré herself and Dr. Emilie Snethlage, whose position as director of the Museu Goeldi made her the first woman in South America to lead a scientific institution. 

Mysmenopsids are tiny, kleptoparasitic spiders found across the Americas, particularly in northern South America. They are cryptic, their small size making it difficult to observe them, never mind dissect and study them. But that’s just what Cláudia and her coauthors did. In this interview she shares what it’s like studying spiders smaller than an apple seed - the good, the bad, and the painful! In her writing both in and out of the museum, Cláudia hopes to demystify spiders and bring more attention to their diversity. 

Cláudia Xavier’s paper “On the symphytognathoid spider genus Mysmenopsis Simon, 1898 (Araneae: Mysmenidae) from the Brazilian Amazonian region: description of five new species and new records” is in issue 5219 off Zootaxa.

Grab your parkas, we’re going to Antarctica! Or at least some researchers did in the 1960s, but it took starfish expert Dr. Chris Mah until the past few years to take a look at their samples and find a new genus and eleven new species of starfish. And not just any starfish, starfish from the deep-sea. In a special guest introduction, Dr. Thom Lindley from our friends at the Deep-Sea Podcast explains what exactly “deep-sea” means, from the creatures that live there to the physics of water pressure at depths of thousands of meters. Learn about “the chonkiest of starfish,” Darth Vader’s character arc, and what happens when you mishandle pressurized fish gut contents on this episode of New Species Podcast. (Spoiler alert on the fish guts: they don’t stay in the fish).

Cedric Lee was collecting slugs with another diplopodologist James Bailey when they stumbled upon a very odd creature; thin and string-like with lots of fine legs and a long body. “We recognized that it might be something special,” explains Cedric as he shares how they uploaded the image to iNaturalist. Enter Dr. Paul Marek, who saw the pictures and immediately got in touch. After some collection and analysis, they have a new millipede to share, Illacme socal, one of only three species in genus Illacme, which is the only genus of the family Siphonorhinidae present in North America. Millipedes are critically understudied and there’s so much more for us to learn. Listen in as Paul and Cedric tell you all about diplopodology and their new discovery!

Cedric and Paul’s paper “A new species of Illacme from southern California (Siphonophorida, Siphonorhinidae)” is published in issue 1167 of Zookeys.

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1167.102537

“I always say that insect taxonomists will never get really rich but you will see parts of the world where nobody else gets a chance to go to. It’s a great chance to explore the world”

This special episode with Dr. Robert Anderson of the Canadian Museum of Nature brings us across the globe and through several decades of research in a fascinating corner of the beetle world. Bob shares the origin story of his fascination with insects, how he became Major League Baseball’s official entomologist, and even a musical secret about the prolific carabid beetle expert George Ball. This interview is a reflection on nearly 4 decades of entomology, and you won’t want to miss a minute. 

Bob Anderson's papers can be found in Zookeys, Zootaxa, The Canadian Entomologist, and many other publications. Papers mentioned in this episode include:

“Here in the South, our grasslands are where most of our, a huge part of our biodiversity are. And most people don't even know that we have natural grasslands in the Southeast…but they were some of the first things to be developed because they were already open. You didn't have to clear them…And so they were lost early on. And all we have now are these small little fragments. Within the last, I'll say seven years now, I've described close to 40 new species of grasshoppers, if we include these seven, from the southeast alone. And 34 of them, probably 35, are grassland inhabitants. So we almost, you know, we're in danger of losing all these species before we even knew they existed. Right here in our backyard in Eastern North America. You think, you know, oh, it's North America. We know, you know, most everything here. Well, we don't.”

In this episode, Dr. JoVonn Hill pulls us headfirst into the world of grasshopper research as he tells us about collecting in central Texas. He shares his thoughts on what accessibility in publications can look like, the unique role of scientific illustration, and advises us on the importance of an afternoon Dairy Queen break.

JoVonn’s paper “Diversification deep in the heart of Texas: seven new grasshopper species and establishment of the Melanoplus discolor species group (Orthoptera, Acrididae, Melanoplinae)” is in issue 1165 of Zookeys. 

Have you ever seen a series of fine squiggles in a leaf? Those might be leaf-mining moths in the genus Argyresthia. These tiny moths are closely linked with many agricultural crops, but factors including sampling bias and their small size mean we don’t know as much about them as we’d like. Jacob Gorneau and his team examined material from Guatemala and described three new species.

An insect-lover from childhood, Jacob has always been fascinated by moths, and these Argyresthia moths are no exception. They’re a small group both in number (with only 200 species) and in size (approximately 1/8th of an inch or smaller), but there’s a lot to learn about them, especially in relation to their host plants. Listen in as Jacob tells us all about his work, his future plans, and why we should care about these tiny animals. 

Jacob Gorneau’s paper “Three new species of the genus Argyresthia Hübner, [1825] from Guatemala, with notes on host plant evolution and Nearctic taxa (Lepidoptera: Argyresthiidae)” is in Volume 51 Issue 201 of SHILAP Revista de lepidopterología.

When a scientist comes on the podcast, we always ask them how they named their new species. It’s a privilege that comes with a species description, and we’ve seen firsthand how different that answer can be. For some it’s a straightforward geographic name, for others it’s about morphology, and still others name after collectors, celebrities, or loved ones. Dr. Stefano Mammola wants to know why.

Beginning in 2020 he and a team of researchers from all over the world analyzed 48,464 etymologies across nearly 300 years to examine naming trends in spider taxonomy to answer the question, “what’s in a spider name?” They cite many different projects (including this podcast!) and, as Stefano shares in this interview, come across some real surprises along the way.

Stefano Mammola’s paper “Taxonomic practice, creativity, and fashion: What’s in a spider name?” is in the February 13th issue of the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.

Amanda Grunwald is fascinated by arthropods, by reptiles, pretty much anything that creeps or crawls. But what about the creatures that fly? Here we dive into her work on bats in the genus Pseudoromicia, simple-nosed bats that are relatively less known. She takes us from the mountains of Cameroon to a genetics lab in Chicago, and we discuss what responsible science looks like and why it’s important. 

A review of bats of the genus Pseudoromicia (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) with the description of a new species” is in volume 21 issue 1 of Systematics and Biodiversity.

Dr. Ángel Valdés has known since childhood that he would study sea slugs, and several years ago that dream took him to New Caledonia to work with a large international research team. While divers and other collectors swept the shoreline and beyond for marine life, Ángel diligently photographed every sea slug, including some unexpected finds. Were those hours worth it? Definitely, in part because he and his team have described seven new species of Nudibranchs, in the family Discodorididae. 

Nudibranchs, also known as sea slugs, are found all over the world. But what’s so special about these “cryptic” New Caledonian species, and what might they have to do with curing rare diseases? Learn all of this and more on this episode of New Species Podcast. 

Ángel Valdés’ paper “Seven new “cryptic” species of Discodorididae (Mollusca, Gastropoda, Nudibranchia) from New Caledonia” is in the March 7th issue of Zookeys.

Muy a menudo, los científicos que entrevistamos en el podcast hablan inglés como su segundo, tercer o cuarto idioma. Y muchos de los oyentes también son multilingües. Me parece muy importante hacer que estas entrevistas sean accesibles en los idiomas que hablan los científicos, y estoy muy agradecida de que me hayan ayudado a grabar este episodio y espero hacer más de lo mismo en el futuro.

This episode is a Spanish translation of our previous interview with Cristian Pertegal. To listen to this conversation in English, please refer to the episode published April 4th, 2023.

Las arañas de trampilla son un misterio relativo para los aracnólogos: son un grupo pequeño que no es muy conocido a pesar de su coloración a menudo audaz y sus madrigueras únicas. Pero para Cristian Pertegal son una pasión y una fascinación, aunque en ocasiones también son un dolor literal. Escuche mientras Cristian comparte su amor por estas arañas, su morfología única, sus fascinantes trampillas y lo que pueden decirnos sobre nuestro mundo.

publicación de Cristian “Descripción de una nueva especie de araña trampera del sur de España, y nueva información sobre Nemesia uncinata (Araneae: Mygalomorphae: Nemesiidae)” es en el volumen 64, número 1 de Arachnology Letters.

Where there is a unique ecosystem to be studied, for example, a patch of tropical evergreen forest 1,000 meters up a mountain, sometimes it’s best to be pushy. Michael Curran had done his master’s research in altitudinal patterns and species richness in rural Mozambique, and when he heard about an expedition back to the area, he wrote to the researcher in charge and asked them to let him come along and catch a few bats. That risk certainly paid off, because he and his coauthors have now described a brand new species of Rhinolophid, or horseshoe bat.

Bats are mysterious creatures of mind-boggling diversity and beauty, and ecosystems like Mount Namuli hold just as much of both. Learn about all of this and more as Michael takes us on his journey of collection and description, and discover the unique story these bats have to tell. 

Michael Curran’s paper “A new species of horseshoe bat (Chiroptera: Rhinolophidae) from Mount Namuli, Mozambique” is in Volume 24, Issue 1 of Acta Chiropterologica.

Trapdoor spiders are a relative mystery to arachnologists - they’re a small group that is not well known despite their often bold coloration and their unique burrows. But for Cristian Pertegal they are a passion and a fascination, even if they are occasionally also a literal pain. Listen in as Cristian shares his love for these spiders, their unique morphology, their fascinating trapdoors, and what they can tell us about our world. 

Cristian Pertegal’s paper “Description of a new trapdoor spider species, Nemesia amicitia spec. nov., from southern Spain, and new information on Nemesia uncinata (Araneae: Mygalomorphae: Nemesiidae)” is in Volume 64 Issue 1 of Arachnology Letters.

Did you know that there are still new species of tree to discover? Wei Harn does, and in this episode he tells us all about his trip surveying Malaysian Royal Belum State Park and an unexpected new species discovery. How does one collect a tree, this entomologist host would like to know! (there certainly aren’t any vials big enough). We learn all about the stunning diversity of the park including its unique assemblages and history, and the importance of studying and valuing natural areas like it.

Wei Harn’s paper “Castanopsis corallocarpus (Fagaceae), a new species from Royal Belum (Perak) in Peninsular Malaysia” is in the 219th issue of Phytokeys.

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.219.95991

New Species: Castanopsis corallocarpusEpisode image courtesy of Wei Harn

Meet Dr. Marshal Hedin. He’s an arachnologist fascinated with Nesticidae, a group of cave-dwelling spiders found in the southern Appalachian mountains, an area of tremendous beauty and biodiversity. In this interview he describes the joy of discoveries of new and interesting species, the struggles of collecting in rock piles and other dangerous terrain, as well as a few adventures along the way. What can we learn from Nesticus? Marshal says: “I just think generally if you live in some hollow or some mountain in southern Appalachia and you happen to have some Nesticus that’s only found in that mountain you might find that interesting and unique…a sense of place, you know? That’s your little cave spider.”

Marshal Hedin’s paper “New species in old mountains: integrative taxonomy reveals ten new species and extensive short-range endemism in Nesticus spiders (Araneae, Nesticidae) from the southern Appalachian Mountains” is in the February 3rd edition of Zookeys.

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1145.96724

New Species: Nesticus binfordae, Nesticus bondi, Nesticus canei, Nesticus cherokeensis, Nesticus dellingeri, Nesticus dykemanae, Nesticus jemisinae, Nesticus lowderi, Nesticus roanensis, and Nesticus templetoni

Episode image courtesy of Alan Cressler

For some, roadkill is just roadkill. For one researcher, it was the start of a brand new career path.

Did you know that there is a group of animals that are legless like snakes and burrow through the ground like worms? Meet Caecilians, an amazing group of amphibians that just received 3 new species courtesy of Dr. Juan David Fernández and his team from Bogotá, Colombia. They examined specimens from the Cordillera Oriental to help piece together the story of Caecilian biodiversity in the Andes. Listen to this interview to learn about these unique creatures and what they can tell us about one of the most fascinating biodiversity hotspots in the world.

And in case you’re curious, the new species pictured here (Caecilia macrodonta) is aptly named- it has the largest dentary teeth of the entire genus!

Do you want to share your thoughts on the podcast? Please do so here:

'When it comes to ants,' Dr. Kiko Gómez says, 'it’s important to know what you don’t know.' The ant genus Pheidole contains over 1,000 species, and is found across the world. But what does it mean to find a new species in this genus? In this episode, Kiko shares his experience collecting and identifying Pheidole ants in the Ivory Coast. He tells us what it’s like to visit the amazing Taï National Park, how myrmecologists differentiate between worker, soldier, and other ant designations, and what makes his group of ants unique from the rest.

Do you want to share your thoughts on the podcast? Please do so here:

Have you ever heard of Mud Dragons? They’re actually a group of marine invertebrates that can be found in oceans across the globe. And, as Dr. María Herranz tells us in this interview, collecting and processing them is a unique challenge. Listen in to find out how a piece of copy paper and Madonna in the early 90s are connected to these fascinating creatures!

María Herranz’s paper “Expanding the Echinoderes coulli group (Kinorhyncha: Cyclorhagida) with a new species from the Chuuk Islands, Micronesia” is in Volume 302 of Zoologischer Anzeiger.

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcz.2022.11.010

New Species: Echinoderes inaequalis

Episode image courtesy of María Herranz

Follow María on twitter: @Maríaherranz___

Imagine this: you’re hiking in the savannah of western Angola when you spot the silhouette of a gecko in the brush. You pick it up, expecting to find your old friend Kolekanos plumicaudus, a little brown patterned gecko with a feather-like tail. But when you look at this gecko, its tail is entirely different, spines instead of feathery plumes. When his colleague brought him the first four specimens, Javier Lobon Rovira knew immediately that they had found a new species. Listen in as he shares his tips for finding geckos, how special this species is to him, and how important it is to give attention to understudied areas like the Angolan savannah.

Javier Lobon Rovira’s paper “A new species of feather-tailed leaf-toed gecko, Kolekanos Heinicke, Daza, Greenbaum, Jackman, Bauer, 2014 (Squamata, Gekkonidae) from the poorly explored savannah of western Angola” is in the November 2nd issue of Zookeys.

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1127.84942

New Species: Kolekanos spinicaudus

Episode image courtesy of Javier Lobon Rovira

Have you heard of snakes in the genus Atractus? They’re the largest snake genus in the world, and recently they received three new members found in an unexpected place. In this episode, Alejandro Arteaga shares the story of how he and his team found three new species of fossorial snakes in the Andes mountains of Ecuador, and what this discovery has to say about the conservation of biodiversity in this unique region of the world.

Alejandro Arteaga’s paper “Leaving no stone unturned: three additional new species of Atractus ground snakes (Serpentes, Colubridae) from Ecuador discovered using a biogeographical approach” is in the September 15th issue of Zookeys.

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1121.89539

New Species: Atractus discovery, Atractus zgap, and Atractus michaelsabini

Episode image courtesy of Alejandro Arteaga

Dilian Georgiev is an Associate Professor in the department of Ecology and Environmental Protection at The Paisii Hilendarski University of Plovdiv. In this episode, he tells Zoe about his recent paper in volume 44 of Historia naturalis bulgarica, in which he and his coauthors describe a new species of spring-snail from the Belasitsa Mountains in South-West Bulgaria. He describes spring-snail evolution, tells us some stories about caving, and shares some wise words about the importance of conservation.

The title of the paper is "Bythinella fabiae n. sp., a new spring-snail species (Gastropoda: Rissooidea) from the Belasitsa Mountains, South-West Bulgaria."

Dr. Derek Hennen works for the Virginia Department of Agriculture as the Slow the Spread Coordinator monitoring the spongy moth populations in the state. He talks to co-host Brian Patrick about his paper inthe April 15th issue of ZooKeys in which he and his coauthors describe 17 new species of millipedes from the eastern United States. We discuss this massive work on millipedes from eastern US, and particularly the group restricted to the Appalachians, how to find millipedes, and how a species named after Taylor Swift got its name!

Kaila Pearson just graduated with her Master’s from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego. She’s here today to talk to me about her paper in the April 22nd issue of Zootaxa in which she and her coauthor describe three new species of deep sea vampire worms. We discuss how life exists without any sunlight, how to collect worms that are a mile (or two!) deep in the ocean, the difference between a deep ocean vent and a seep, why they’re called vampire worms, and how these species got their names!

Brogan Pett is our guests and he talks about his recent paper in which he and his coauthor describe a new species of spider from Madagascar in the March 14th issue of Zootaxa. Brogan is a doctoral researcher in the Centre for Ecology and Conservation at the University of Exeter in the UK. Additionally, Brogan serves as the research director of SpiDervERse, a workgroup of the Belgian nonprofit organization Biodiversity Inventory for Conservation (BINCO). We discuss these unique spiders, their less explored habitat, and the incredible undescribed diversity of this group of spiders in Madagascar!

Zoe interviews Kris Helgen, Chief Scientist and Director of the Australian Museum Research Institute. They discuss how one species became three, what makes these animals unique, and what other questions scientists could ask about them in the future.

Two interviews in this episode! First, Agata Szwarc from the University of Gdansk in Poland talks about her recent paper in the December 9th(2021) issue of Zookeys in which she and her coauthors describe two new species of ostracod crustaceans from Africa! She talks with cohost Zoe Albion about these unusual crustaceans that live in temporary pools of water (very fast lives!), why they’re important to the southern Africa food chain, their asexual lifestyle, and how to find these unique and tiny organisms.

Dr. Kris White and Sally Sir are our guests as they talk about their paper in which they describe a new species of amphipod from Japan in the February 1st issue of Zootaxa. Ms. Sir is an undergraduate at Georgia College and State University, and Dr. White is an Assistant Professor of Biology in the Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences at GCSU.  We discuss what an amphipod is (because not everybody seems to know that!), where they generally live, how they were found, their role in ecosystems as food and bioindicators, and the joys of dissecting very tiny specimens to draw pictures!

Dr. Juan Reyes-Puig is a Coordinator of Ecological Reserves with the Fundacion EcoMinga Red de Protection des Bosques Amenazados in Ecuador. He talks to me about his paper published in the January 10th issue of the ZooKeys in which he and his coauthors describe two new species of frogs! We discuss where these frogs live, how they were found, the importance of ecological reserves in Ecuador, and frog life without tadpoles!

Dr. Brian Bahder is an Assistant Professor at the University of Florida’s Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center. He talks to me about his paper published in the September 6 issue of the Zootaxa in which he and his coauthors describe a new species of planthopper! We discuss what planthoppers are, how they can spread plant diseases, planthoppers as the mosquitoes of the plant world, how easy it is to find new planthopper species, and the strange joke behind the name of this new species!