Friday, 11 December 2015

BioBrevia: Hope for the Old Fashion Field Naturalist

Illustration: Philip Henry Gosse 

This brief article from Science, Explosion in new Dragonfly Species Results in Animals Named after Gorillas, Pink Floyd, and the accompanying presentation, are great inspiration for would-be naturalist-explorers. A small team recently described 60 new species of dragonflies and damselflies from west and central Africa. All of these species were recognized in the field before they were diagnosed using genetics in the lab, demonstrating that an abundance of new species still await discovery the old fashioned way, by simply getting out in the field and knowing your stuff. The actual journal article in which the new species are described is available from Odonatologica.