Taxonomy » Biodiversity in Focus Blog

To Know a Fly – Colobostema marielae

Cool Science, Taxonomy, To Know A Fly No Responses »

May 132013

On Mother’s Day, many men pick up flowers or make breakfast in bed for their partners to show their appreciation for everything moms do. If you’re a taxonomist, you can go a step further and give the eternal gift of patronymy (or perhaps matronymy?) by naming a new species after the mother of your offspring!

In a recent Zootaxa paper, that’s exactly what Heron Huerta did, naming a new species of Mexican Scatopsidae Colobostema marielae, and earning extra brownie points in the etymology:

This new species is named after my wife, Mariela Trujillo De la Cruz, for her unconditional support, love and enthusiasm for my projects.

- Huerta, 2013

Scatopsidae are commonly referred to as minute black scavenger flies (or even less romantically, dung midges), and with larval habitats ranging from the decaying to the defecated, having something like this named for you may seem less like an honour and more like a thinly veiled insult. But when you consider your fly is 1 of only ~250 species known, that your fly’s relatives are found literally around the world and have been helping keep us out of the rot since the time of T. rex, and that, while not as flashy or well known as other organisms, someone has devoted their life to learning all there is to know about your fly and has decided that you are so important you should be forever immortalized as the namesake for this unique being, well, that’s a pretty powerful gift.

Happy Mother’s Day.

A Colobostema species from Alabama. Colobostema mariela apparently looks much like this, but with a uniquely constricted tergite 7 (you’ll just have to take Heron’s word on this one). Photo by Robert Lord Zimlich, used under CC BY-ND-NC 1.0 licence.

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Nominate this species for New Species of the Year!
HUERTA H. (2013). New species of the genus Colobostema Enderlein (Diptera: Scatopsidae) from Mexico, Zootaxa, 3619 (2) DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.3619.2.6

To Know A Fly – Platypalpus apterus

Biology, Cool Science, Taxonomy, To Know A Fly 1 Response »

Apr 302013

Stop me if you’ve heard this one, but what do you call a wingless fly? Apterous of course!

Proving once and for all that taxonomists do indeed have a sense of humour, meet Platypalpus apterus De Freitas & Ale-Rocha.

Winglessness has independently evolved more than a hundred times across the order Diptera, but as this dance fly (Hybotidae) illustrates, the results are anything but pedestrian. Like its fully-winged relatives, Platypalpus apterus is an active hunter, only in this case scouring beneath the bark of Polylepis trees for earthbound arthropods unable to escape its piercing beak.

Considering Platypalpus apterus‘ inability to fly, it’s poetic that it was collected high above the clouds in the Andean paramo of Ecuador, in an area that is as beautiful as it is barren. In fact, aptery is incredibly common at high altitudes, with many different fly families exhibiting high levels of wingless diversity on mountainous islands set amongst the sky. There are several theories on why it may be advantageous for flies to forego their wings, including as a defense against strong winds capable of carrying individuals away and colder, cloudier conditions at altitude impacting the flies’ ability to warm up their flight muscles.

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Nominate this species for New Species of the Year!
De Freitas-Silva R.A.P. & Ale-Rocha R. (2013). A new apterous species of Platypalpus Macquart (Diptera: Hybotidae, Tachydromiinae) from Ecuador, Zootaxa, 3636 (4) 590-596. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.11646%2Fzootaxa.3636.4.6

To Know A Fly – Coquena stangei

Cool Science, Insects, Taxonomy, To Know A Fly 4 Responses »

Apr 222013

Bring up flies in casual conversation and undoubtedly you’ll receive a look of disgust from your company, often followed shortly thereafter by the words “hate”, “disgusting” or “gross”. Thanks to the culturally unsavoury and occasionally deadly deeds of but a few, flies the world over are generally regarded as creatures to crush, worth more dead than alive.

Considering the media’s tendency to only get excited over new species that are fuzzy, feathered or fossilized, you could be forgiven for not realizing that more than a thousand new species of fly are described every year by taxonomists from around the world. Even other taxonomists rarely acknowledge how cool and extraordinary flies are, as they’re the only major insect order not to be selected as one of the Top 10 New Species of the Year by Arizona State University’s International Institute for Species Exploration (yet; I encourage you to nominate you’re favourite new species via the link I’ve included at the end of the post).

So welcome to what I hope will become a weekly feature, where I’ll highlight a newly described species of fly, sometimes sharing the nuances of biological nomenclature, sometimes the tireless work of taxonomists, but always the incredible diversity of Diptera. Because as Vincent Dethier concludes in his entomological exploration To Know a Fly:

To know the fly is to share a bit in the sublimity of Knowledge. That is the challenge and joy of science.

You Must Bee Joking

Cool Science, Insects, Taxonomy 19 Responses »

Dec 172012

Sheldon: Which bees are the best kissers?

Leonard: What? I don’t know…

Sheldon: Euglossa¹. Bazinga.

Not only is that a pretty bad joke (even by sitcom standards), but it’s also the scientific name of a newly described orchid bee. Let me introduce you to Euglossa bazinga Nemésio & Ferrari:

Euglossa bazinga Nemésio & Ferrari 2012

Found in the Brazilian Cerrado and other dry, open savannahs, this species was differentiated from the similar Euglossa ignita. According to the authors, Euglossa bazinga is the smallest species in the subgenus Euglossa (Glossura), but it possesses the longest tongue relative to it’s body size. Many taxonomists would perhaps see this as a good character to derive a name from (gigaglossa springs to mind, or perhaps microsomamegaglossa² for the verbose), so how did Nemésio & Ferrari settle on Euglossa bazinga?

Etymology: The specific epithet honors the clever, funny, captivating “nerd” character Sheldon Cooper, brilliantly portrayed by the North American actor James Joseph “Jim” Parsons on the CBS TV show “The Big Bang Theory”. Sheldon Cooper’s favorite comic word “bazinga”, used by him when tricking somebody, was here chosen to represent the character. Euglossa bazinga sp. n. has tricked us for some time due to its similarity to E. ignita, which eventually led us to use “bazinga”. Sheldon Cooper has also an asteroid named after him (246247 Sheldoncooper).

- Nemésio & Ferrari, 2012

I think this may be a first for a Celebronym, with the species named after a catchphrase rather than the actual character or celebrity! What’s next, a beetle with enlarged fore tarsi named “ayyyyy” after The Fonz? As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t mind these Celebronyms personally, especially when they serve to draw attention to a very special habitat such as the Brazilian Cerrado.

No matter what your stance on Celebronyms, the joke may be on the authors of this new species; Sheldon Cooper is allergic to bees! Bazinga.

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NEMÉSIO A. & FERRARI R.R. (2012). Euglossa (Glossura) bazinga sp. n. (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Apinae, Apini, Euglossina), a new orchid bee from western Brazil, and designation of a lectotype for Euglossa (Glossura) ignita Smith, 1874, Zootaxa, 3590 63-72. Other: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:E9C0A568-8BBC-4E1D-8F05-C7FA1966B0D3
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Euglossa - Greek – “eu” = good, well; “glossa” = tongue; Euglossa = “well-tongued”, in reference to their very long mouthparts. ↩
“little body, big tongue” ↩

New species wants you to See No Weevil

Cool Science, Entomology, Natural History, Taxonomy 84 Responses »

Aug 092012

Fact: flies are the coolest insects.

If you don’t believe me, take a look at this newly described weevil, Timorus sarcophagoides Vanin & Guerra, from Brazil, which is doing everything it can to fool you into thinking it’s a flesh fly (family Sarcophagidae).

Remember: Publish First, Publicize Second

Publication, Taxonomy, Taxonomy in the News 19 Responses »

Jun 202012

Well this is fun¹: an entomologist in New Zealand has decided to name a recently discovered moth species after the movie Avatar.

Arctesthes avatar courtesy of the Forest & Bird press release

The moth in question was recently discovered on a parcel of land in central New Zealand which is currently slated to become an opencast coal mine. In an effort to prevent the area from being destroyed, Forest & Bird (a conservation group in New Zealand) staged a BioBlitz to draw attention to the unique flora & fauna found there. After realizing that they had discovered an undescribed species at the BioBlitz, entomologist Brian Patrick and his son decided to hold a contest, encouraging the public to come up with a potential name for the new species to further draw attention to the cause.

After nearly 100 names were submitted, it was announced June 19, 2012 that the winning name will be Arctesthes avatar. From the press release:

Brian said the Avatar moth was a clear winner. “It was by far the best one. It’s a novel name and the movie is about a mining company that threatens to devastate a human-like species that’s living in harmony with nature. It’s just a really good analogy.”

As we’ve seen with other species names referencing pop-culture icons, the New Zealand media picked up the story and ran with it, publishing the story, the name, and a photo of the moth. Normally this would be great exposure for the researchers (and biodiversity science in general), getting some press for a new species in a location that’s not that far from populated areas.

Unfortunately for the researchers, they may have put the cart before the horse on this one by publicizing their discovery before publishing it themselves.

Unlike other sciences, where you may be able to get away with leaking your results a little ahead of your publication², when it comes to naming species it’s incredibly important to wait until you’ve actually published. The reason being that if the new species name appears in a publication that has multiple, simultaneously printed copies (like the NZ Herald/Greymouth Star newspapers³) with even a semblance of a description (like “striped moth”, which has been used repeatedly with this story) and/or a photograph (see above), whoever wrote that article becomes the authority behind the name! Nevermind that Brian Patrick is the taxonomic expert, collected the specimen, recognized it as being unique, discovered where it belonged in the tree of life and, in this instance, acquired DNA evidence. All of that will go unrecognized⁴ and the first journalist who wrote up the story off the press release will go down as the one who formally described the species!

Simply put, instead of being recorded as Arctesthes avatar Patrick & Patrick 2012, the species will be known as Arctesthes avatar RandomJournalist 2012. Oops!

The fact that new species descriptions needn’t be published in a peer-reviewed journal may come as a surprise, but I think it’s an effort to keep taxonomy an accessible science for anyone, anywhere. It’s clear that some funny things can happen when there are few restrictions on where a species can be described, and as the Code of Zoological Nomenclature moves into the digital age with the next edition, many taxonomists are hoping that registration services like ZooBank will play a big role in new species descriptions and validation in the future. Until the new “Code” is ratified however, unfortunate events like what happened here with Arctesthes avatar are possible.

So remember kids, when you go to describe a new species, publish first, publicize second!

UPDATE 27/06/2012: As Kai pointed out in the comments below, the authors have escaped this embarrassing scenario because none of the media stories will likely include enough information to form a proper type designation.

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1- My definition of fun and that of the entomologist involved are probably different here…

2- Although I would assume this is frowned upon as well.

3- Thanks to David Winter of the Atavism for help tracking these sources down.

4- They’ll still publish their work, but it won’t actually be a new species description anymore.

Dipterist Files – Willi Hennig

Entomology, Publication, Science Communication, Taxonomy 13 Responses »

Apr 202012

Willi Hennig - The Father of Modern Phylogenetic Systematics

Willi Hennig (Image by Gerd Hennig, CC-license, Wikipedia)

The science of taxonomy is rooted in history, with every taxonomist standing on the shoulders of giants that came before. Some of these giants are well known outside of taxonomic circles: Carl Linnaeus, the godfather of taxonomy who categorized life and introduced binomial nomenclature; Charles Darwin & Alfred Russel Wallace, co-discovers of evolution through natural selection and both prolific descriptive taxonomists in their own right. A lesser known giant, Willi Hennig, was not only a brilliant taxonomist, but also revolutionized the way in which we study & reconstruct species relationships. Today (April 20, 2012) marks what would have been his 99th birthday, and in his honour, I invite you to sit back and allow me to tell you a story of flies, war and why you & I are fish.

Willi Hennig was born April 20, 1913, the eldest son of working class parents, in Dürrhennersdorf, Germany. Hennig excelled throughout his schooling, developing a passion for insects by the 5th grade, and began working at the Dresden State Museum of Natural History while still a teenager. After a few years studying the taxonomy of reptiles, Hennig found his true passion, dipterology. Starting somewhere between 1932 and 1934, Hennig began revising the stilt-legged flies (family Micropezidae), completing his revision in 1936. Hennig erected 10 new genera and described 93 new species over several papers spanning 300+ pages. Concurrently, Hennig found time to publish papers on stilt-legged fly biogeography, more reptile taxonomy, and he also completed his PhD (on the copulation apparatus and system of the Tanypezidae; another lineage of acalyptrate flies), all before he was 24.

Poecilotylus species eating off a tree trunk in Bolivia Micropezidae

This stilt-legged fly belongs in the genus Poecilotylus, one of the genera Hennig created in his early Micropezidae work.

Hennig was beginning to rethink how species were related, but before he could further explore his ideas, German politics and a world at war intervened.

Enlisted into the German army in 1938, Hennig fought for Nazi Germany (though he was never a member of the National Socialist party) until 1942 when he was severely injured while fighting in Russia. After recovering from his injuries, Hennig was posted to Italy as a military entomologist and put to work on malaria prevention. In May of 1945, as the war was nearing an end, Hennig’s unit was captured by British soldiers, and he became a prisoner of war. His British captors recognized Hennig’s potential, and rather than placing him under confinement in a prison camp, allowed him to continue his work on malaria for the benefit of the Queen.

For 5 months while confined to the “service” of the British army, Hennig refined his hypotheses on the evolutionary history of species. With the help of his wife Irma, who corresponded with colleagues and journals on his behalf (because he continued to publish throughout the war), and who included hand-written excerpts of the scientific literature in her letters to him, Hennig completed his first draft of one of the most important biological manuscripts of the 20th century, all by hand while a POW, prior to his release in October, 1945. It would be another 5 years until his book would be published in Germany because of a paper shortage, and a further 16 years until the English-speaking world was introduced to Willi Hennig’s revolutionary Phylogenetic Systematics.

Prior to Hennig’s book, species (and higher taxa) were clustered by overall similarity without regard for their evolutionary history, a method known as phenetics. What set Hennig’s phylogenetic systematics apart was the idea that species evolved from one another, and thus species should be classified as complete units descended from a recent common ancestor (a concept known as monophyly).

Phenetics vs Monophyly (Modified image from lattice CC-BY)

Think of a tree; with phenetics, leaves from different branches could be grouped together because they looked the most similar to one another. Phylogenetic systematics on the other hand, posited that only leaves arising from a shared branch should be classified together, regardless of how those leaves may look. How do you know the origin of the branch when all you have in front of you are the leaves? Hennig’s answer was to find defining characters or traits that were unique to the tip branches but which were different from the branches closer to the trunk of the tree.

It’s Hennig’s concept of monophyly that makes us all fish. You see, what we call fish, tasty aquatic vertebrates with fins and gills, are actually a number of different evolutionary lineages, each arising successively like twigs off a tree branch. One of those twigs near the end of the branch became the terrestrial vertebrates, which in turn has smaller twigs each representing amphibians, reptiles, birds (which are actually reptiles for the same reason we’re fish) and mammals. So, if we consider separate twigs of aquatic, gilled vertebrates as “fish”, then we must also consider our twig of terrestrial vertebrates “fish” since the most recent, common ancestor of all the “fish” also gave rise to us!

Fish Phylogeny (Image modified from Understanding Evolution)

In retrospect it seems a simple idea that species should follow a branching pattern from a common ancestor like Hennig proposed, but the upheaval of decades of work on species relationships was indeed revolutionary, and was viciously opposed by many biologists. In fact it wasn’t until the late 1980s that phylogenetic systematics came into vogue, in most part thanks to a new, young cohort of taxonomists who adopted the moniker of “raving cladists”.

Hennig meanwhile, continuing his work with flies, applied his phylogenetic systematics across a large diversity of dipteran families, examined flies sealed in ancient amber for evidence of ancestral characters, and published dozens of papers (across thousands of pages) that redefined the higher relationships among flies and described new species. It was at work in his museum that Hennig preferred, only twice venturing from Germany to examine fly collections in Australia, the USA, and Canada, where he spent several months working in what is now the Diptera Unit of the Canadian National Collection of Insects in Ottawa.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall in this room for the day! Back row from left: Frank McAlpine, Herb Teskey, Guy Shewell. Front row from left: Monty Wood, Dick Vockeroth, Bobbie Peterson, Willi Hennig.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall in this room for a day! So much dipterological knowledge all concentrated in one room, it must have been amazing. Back row from left: Frank McAlpine, Herb Teskey, Guy Shewell. Front row from left: Monty Wood, Dick Vockeroth, Bobbie Peterson, Willi Hennig. (Image from Cumming et al, 2011)

Willi Hennig wouldn’t survive to see his work become fully appreciated by the scientific community. After a normal day working in his museum looking at larval flies, Willi Hennig suffered a heart attack and died at home on November 5, 1976. Although he died much too young, his legacy lives on; his work with stilt-legged flies is second to none, many of his hypotheses regarding the higher relationships of flies are being supported with new DNA data, and biologists around the world use phylogenetic systematics on a daily basis.

Happy Birthday Willi, and thanks for all the fish.

Willi Hennig (Image by Gerd Hennig, CC, Wikipedia)

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All biographical information was taken from the following sources:

Byers, George W. 1977. In Memoriam: Willi Hennig (1913-1976). Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society, 50 (2): 272-274. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25082934?origin=JSTOR-pdf

Kluge, Arnold G., Bernd Hennig. No Date. Willi Hennig. Willi Hennig Society - http://cladistics.org/about/hennig

Schmitt, M. 2003. Willi Hennig and the Rise of Cladistics. Proceedings of the 18th International Congress of Zoology: 369-379.

Dipterist Group Photo:

Cumming, Jeffrey M., Bradley J. Sinclair, Scott E. Brooks, James E. O’Hara, Jeffrey H. Skevington. 2011. The history of dipterology at the Canadian National Collection of Insects, with special reference to the Manual of Nearctic Diptera. Canadian Entomologist 143: 539-577.

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Taxonomy for 10-year-olds

Blogosphere, Entomology, Science Communication, Taxonomy 8 Responses »

Apr 182012

Another week, another Monday night blog challenge from the Bug Geek! Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is explain your research in 250 words or less in a way that a 10-year-old could understand. Instead of banging my head against the wall on a manuscript (see earlier challenge) I tried my hand at explaining Diptera taxonomy.

What do I do for a living? I collect bugs! Not just any bugs though; I like to catch flies from around the world, bring them back to my laboratory, and figure out what their names are. Just like your parents gave you a name that’s special to you, scientists like me have given names to a lot of the flies around us. Many flies have long complicated names, like Drosophila melanogaster or Taeniaptera trivittata, but these names tell us who the fly is related to, just like your name.

Sometimes when I’m out collecting flies, I find one that has never been seen by a scientist before. That’s when my job gets really exciting, because I get to give that fly a new name! I can name a fly because of how it looks or how it lives, but sometimes I name the fly after someone important. As long as I know who it’s related to, I have lots of flexibility in naming!

There is so much about flies that we don’t know, which means plenty for me to learn. Most people think you need to travel to faraway jungles to find something exciting, but there are amazing new discoveries waiting for you in your own backyard. There may even be a new fly waiting to be discovered! Learning about flies at home and abroad helps us understand how they live their lives and why they look the way they do.

Not really knowing any 10-year-old children, I hope my explanation isn’t too simplified (I think it’d be ok for my 7-year-old nephew though). Clearly I didn’t really get into the other aspects of my job, like phylogenetics, systematics and disseminating biodiversity knowledge through identification aids (and blogging of course). While I think I could do it, these topics would need another 250 words, and it was already 2am when I finished this bit…

This was a great challenge, and has applications far beyond inquisitive school children. I have family and friends ask what I do and why it matters fairly frequently, and in the past I’ve sometimes felt self-conscious trying to explain it (but that’s a much larger topic for another day). After this exercise, I think I’ve got a few new tricks up my sleeve for the next family reunion!

Toxomerus marginatus

The Taxonomic Process

Fun Stuff, Life as a Grad Student, Taxonomy, Tongue in Cheek 12 Responses »

Apr 022012

The Geek In Question posted an awesome graph representing the stages and challenges of scientific publication. You should go check it out right now if you haven’t seen it yet, because it’s spot on! I’m right in the middle of the graph (you know, the big pit of despair part) on a couple of manuscripts currently, and am really looking forward to that beer-drinking phase!

Until then, I figured I’d join in and provide my take on the taxonomic process, which has it’s own series of highs and lows!

This may seem intimidating, but trust me, I love what I do and couldn’t imagine doing anything else with my life! I also might be exaggerating a little bit in some of those low areas (except for the phylogenetics software, that stuff blows), but nothing beats the highs of collecting, species discovery, and making your work accessible to the world!

System Failure at Systema Dipterorum

Academia, Entomology, Taxonomy 12 Responses »

Feb 282012

Over the past 250 years, hundreds of thousands of flies have been described and given names by taxonomists from around the world. Many of these names have stood the test of time and are still in use today (the common house fly Musca domestica was named by Carl Linneaus in 1758, for example), but many names did not make the cut; sometimes because the species they were assigned to already had names from earlier scientists, sometimes because the name was being used for another animal, and sometimes because we gained a better understanding for how species are related and moved them to a new branch on the tree of life. These synonymous names remain important to us though, and can’t just be discarded or forgotten about, as sometimes they get a second chance at fame following the discovery of new specimens or new characters! Managing all of these names, searching for obscure papers published at any point in the last 250 years and knowing every little detail about a species’ scientific heritage is what keeps taxonomists busy from day to day. Taxonomists are modern day treasure hunters, following maps laid out by our taxonomic forefathers and searching for hidden gems in new & undescribed species.

Traditionally, species names have been tracked in small batches during the course of taxonomic revisions, being updated once a generation or two if we’re lucky. For decades, taxonomy has been underfunded, understaffed and unappreciated, meaning even these small revisions are being done less and less frequently, and by fewer people each generation. This has lead to a situation that has been termed the Taxonomic Impediment. Put simply, there are too many unknown species and not enough time, money or scientists to describe them, with many species disappearing before we even realized they were there.

In the internet age, taxonomists can communicate, collaborate, and compile their expertise into larger ideas and bigger projects. By working together, taxonomists today have begun consolidating tools in open access resources available to the community at large, and more importantly, the public. One such resource is Systema Dipterorum, a clearing house for fly names and taxonomic information. This library of fly taxonomy has been an ongoing project for the past 20 years, originally spearheaded by Dr. F. Christian Thompson, a veteran fly taxonomist and one of the world’s foremost experts on flower flies (Syrphidae). With the help of dipterists from around the world, and the support of Dr. Thomas Pape and the Natural History Museum of Denmark where the online database has been stored for the past few years, this database of fly names has grown to include more than 160,000 species, for which 250,000 different names have been found, recorded and made available in the database (as reported in FlyTimes Issue 46, 2011), along with authors and citations for when those names were first published.

Systema Dipterorum is a shining example of what a taxonomic community can accomplish, even with the limited financial resources provided to it. Other groups have similar resources (see AntWeb.org for the photographic equivalent for Formicidae) but I regard the Diptera community’s combined efforts as one of the greatest accumulations of taxonomic information anywhere. I use this database weekly during the course of my own taxonomic revisions, but I also consult it for my personal endeavors in order to use the most accurate names in my photography and scientific communication, as well as to satisfy my curiosity.

I also use the database to explore the works of other dipterists, to learn what they are passionate about, and to better understand the work being undertaken around the world. To that regard, I visited diptera.org on February 16 to learn more about the work of Australian dipterist Don Colless, who recently passed away. Instead of a world-leading database, I found this:

Home page for Systema Dipterorum as of February 16, 2011 (click to enlarge)

What made this unsettling discovery even more surprising was Dr. Thompson’s recent commitment to developing the database despite a recent funding cut! Along with Dr. Thompson’s efforts to develop Systema Dipterorum, many from the community have also contributed to the database. Closure of the database is a slap in the face to all who have taken the time to contribute, and a major setback for dipterists everywhere.

Dr. Thompson has said his decision to close Systema Dipterorum was made by the funding cut, but also because he believes he is being forced out of his emeritus position at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington (where he’s been employed for decades). Regardless, Systema Dipterorum should not be used as a negotiating tool, and restricting access holds the entire Diptera community hostage. Hopefully Dr. Thompson and his colleagues will consider officially making the database the property of the global Dipterology community and not remove it, or threaten to remove it again.

As of February 21, Systema Dipterorum has been placed back online, although there appear to be coding issues, with error messages appearing in place of search results, resulting in the system remaining inoperable. Hopefully these kinks will be worked out quickly, restoring Systema Dipterorum to a fully functional state. I can only imagine that administrative abilities and over-arching control strategies will be reexamined after this incident, and safeguards will likely be enacted to prevent a similar situation from occurring again.

The long term future of Systema Dipterorum is anything but assured however. The continual development of this resource will rely on stable funding being available for not only its basic day to day maintenance, but more importantly the continued job of growing the database through the addition of names and taxonomic information. Perhaps it’s time for the international Diptera community to move from an informal association of like-minded individuals (like those found in the North American Dipterists Society or the Diptera.info community) towards a more formal society, complete with an elected governing board, constitution and devoted, voting membership. We’re not far from such a society; the North American Dipterists Society meets biannually, while an International Congress of Dipterology is held every four years, and dipterists have taken to Facebook and other social media to facilitate communication between formal gatherings. I’m sure that establishing an international society can be a delicate endeavor, but what better time than the present to begin the process, promote international collaboration and encourage prospective dipterists from around the world to become involved in a global initiative? An International Society of Dipterists could then be made stewards of Systema Dipterorum, helping to ensure its continued development by research groups and enthusiastic specialists as a leading mandate for the society.

There have been major strides made by the Diptera community to advance not only our knowledge of fly diversity and taxonomy, but also to advance the profile of taxonomists in general. In an age where taxonomists are becoming endangered species, it’s imperative that we band together and remind funding agencies, universities and governments about the vital role the science of taxonomy plays in all aspects of biology, and encourage these institutions to return to investing in the training, employment and funding of taxonomists, before the Taxonomic Impediment becomes the Taxonomic Impoverishment.

UPDATE March 5, 2012: It seems Systema Dipterorum is fully functional again. Go find taxonomic info while you can people!

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