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The insect collections of museums contain drawers of unidentified specimens which await the attention of specialists. This month a new species of butterfly, Splendeuptychia ackeryi (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae), will be published in Zootaxa after being discovered by a curator from The Natural History Museum, Blanca Huertas.

Huertas collected S. ackeryi during an expedition to Columbia, but it wasn’t until the unidentified butterfly was compared with a museum specimens that entomologist realised it was the same as a 90 year old unidentified museum specimen. One of the distinguishing features of S. ackeryi which helped with the identification were its extremely hairly mouthparts.

I first read about this in a ScienceDaily article.

You can view some photographs on the NHM news page.

Part of the work I do at the Natural History Museum involves the preparation for construction of taxonomic database on Coreidae, a family of ‘true bugs’ (Hemiptera) known colloquially as squash bugs or leaf-footed bugs. One aim of the database is to include photographs of as many important museum (type) specimens as possible, allowing researchers to view the specimens without having to travel to the museum or request to have the specimens sent through the post.

The Swedish Natural History Museum, Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet, holds a number of these type specimens. As I was already going to be in Stockholm, my supervisor and I thought it would be good to visit the museum.

The entrance to the Swedish Natural History Museum, Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet.

The curators in the entomology department were very welcoming and helpful, answering many questions and allowing me to study some of their Hemiptera. Hopefully I will get to visit for longer this summer and photograph more of their specimens.

One of the photographed Coreidae, Bostrostethus annulipes © Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet

The idea of a bedroom/basement laboratory has appealed to me since childhood, and probably has for my scientist friends, so when I read the Rise of the garage genome hackers (McKenna, 2009:20-21) in last week’s New Scientist magazine my mind started wandering back to my time as a biochemistry student.

The article interviewed a few people that do homebrew biology and have achieved some impressive results with modest equipment: one amateur has inserted green fluorescent protein genes into bacteria whilst another claims to have engineered bacteria capable of basic logic functions.

Some of these people belong to amateur organisation called DIYbio which “is an organization that aims to help make biology a worthwhile pursuit for citizen scientists, amateur biologists, and DIY biological engineers who value openness and safety”. Their blog has interesting articles like gel electrophoresis at home and considering safe storage of reagents, disposing of experiments and general waste disposal.

Would any of you try some homebrew genetic engineering, or have any ideas for interesting entomological applications? With seemingly low setup costs, the article implies equipment could be obtained for under £100 if you have some ingenuity, a home lab could be a possibility for many people. It’s also easy to see potential problems, not just with the experimenter’s safety…

Reference:
McKenna, P. (2009) Rise of the genome hackers. New Scientist. No 2689