A Very Good Day of Collecting

Posted on 8 February 2013 by David Maddison
LagoPuelo1200

Lago Puelo

We arrived at the campsite near the shores of Lago Puelo (above) in the mountains of Argentina late at night.  It had been a long day of collecting, and we were all rather tired.  There was a roaring river nearby (a river that emptied into Lago Puelo), but the best I could make out in the circle illuminated by my headlamp was fast water and dangerous shorelines.  The river shores didn’t look too good (too narrow and too steep), and so I did not have much hope for this locality.  Little did I know what would await me in the morning.

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Wicked and confused Bembidion

Posted on 6 February 2013 by David Maddison

There are over 1200 known species of Bembidion.  Many of them are hard to tell apart.  They are small beetles.  Maybe for this reason some taxonomists have struggled with them, and their frustration occasionally is expressed when they name new species.  For example, there is “Bembidion confusum“, named by Roland Hayward, and “Bembidion impotens“, named by Thomas L. Casey.  In fact, there are least 42 names that have been applied to North American Bembidion that express scorn, deception, uncertainty, and dejection:

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Delightful DNA

Posted on 6 February 2013 by David Maddison

curtulatumDNA

Well, it looks as if Bembidion (Plataphus) curtulatum is at least three species.  The above bits of DNA show parts of 28S ribosomal DNA.  Of the 950 bases that were sequenced, this shows only those sites that differ from one specimen to the next, and at which there is no variation within any of the individual specimens’ copies of the gene.  As you can see, the specimens from Montana and Idaho differ quite a bit from the other beetles, and the specimen from Alberta is different yet again.  And the number of differences observed are enough to suggest they are different species.  It will be interesting to see what the other genes say, and whether there are correlated characters in the pronotum, microsculpture, and male genitalia of the beetles.  I’ll report back on that after I check.

Posted in Revising Bembidiina, Taxonomic Process | Tagged , | 3 Comments

3D or not to 3D?

Posted on 6 February 2013 by David Maddison

DNA2370Animated

The male genitalia of Bembidion are small and partly transparent, with complex, multiple layers. This makes them hard to photograph, and hard to illustrate.  It’s especially hard to give a sense of the three dimensional structure.  I have been exploring ways to illustrate them; the above animated GIF shows one way. Continue reading →

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BotW: Bembidion confusum

Posted on 5 February 2013 by David Maddison
Bembidion (Odontium) confusum

Bembidion (Odontium) confusum

The Beetle of the Day today is Bembidion confusum.  This is a common species on sandy river and pond shores east of the Rockies in North America.  It’s the species whose head appears on the “Subulate Palpomere” sign.

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Naming species and the danger of good intentions

Posted on 3 February 2013 by David Maddison

It can be a bit of a challenge to come up with a meaningful name for a new beetle. I’m working on a paper or two in which I will be describing several new species of Bembidiina from North America.  One of them is that brilliant green Bembidion from New Mexico and Arizona I showed in an earlier post. What should I call it? Continue reading →

Posted in Revising Bembidiina, Taxonomic Process | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Arroyo Queñi in Argentina

Posted on 3 February 2013 by David Maddison
Arroyo Queñi near Lago Queñi, Argentina

Arroyo Queñi near Lago Queñi, Argentina

I visited this spot in Argentina in 2007; the wonderfully clear river had, along its rocky banks, some very cool carabids.  Four species were very common here:  a large, black, undescribed species of Bembidion (more on that later), a species of the Bembidion rufoplagiatum complex (possibly a mess of species that are hard to tell apart), and two species of the very curious genus Bembidarenas. All of these beetles live within 2 meters of the water, and some are abundant; in a couple hours of collecting I found about 150 of the undescribed Bembidion, and could have picked up many more.

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A live revision

Posted on 1 February 2013 by David Maddison

Over the course of the next three years, some of us (me, John Sproul, and others) in the Maddison Lab will be “revising” the Bembidiina of North America.  This means we will be going into the field in the USA and Canada and collecting beetles, sequencing DNA of the beetles, looking at their structures, and studying specimens from some of the major museums.  In the process, we will be discovering the species that live here, and communicating the results, on the fly, as we find things.

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Blowing Stumps with Dynamite

Posted on 1 February 2013 by David Maddison

I happened upon a lovely paper by George Roberts in the Bulletin of the Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station of the State University, published in June 1911.  The paper has the very promising title “Blowing Stumps with Dynamite”, and it does not disappoint.  Its concluding two figures are classics.  Here they are:

stumpBeforeBlowing

explosion

Posted in Scientific Illustrations | 4 Comments

BotW: A brilliant Bembidion

Posted on 1 February 2013 by David Maddison

Beetle of the Day: an unnamed Bembidion

This is a lovely but unnamed Bembidion from Arizona and New Mexico, first found by George Ball in the 1960s. I lives under willows on the banks of rivers. It is much easier to find at night (using a headlamp) than during the day. It is about 6 mm long, and is closely related to Bembidion levigatum.

Posted in Beetle of the Week | Tagged | 3 Comments