S2, E03: New crustaceans from Africa and a new frog species from Panama!

03/01/22 • 28 min

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.

The title of her paper is “Two new Cypridopsinae Kaufman, 1900 (Crustacea, Ostracoda) from southern Africa.” The paper is currently available Open Access here: https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/76123/

The second interview with Dr. Abel Batista discusses a new species of rainfrog from Panama published in the January 10th issue of the ZooKeys. Dr. Batista is a researcher at Universidad Autonoma de Chiriqui in Panama and was the guest for Season 1, Episode 15! During this interview, we talk about cloud forests in Panama, frogs guarding eggs, and the difficulties of finding these frogs.

The title of the paper is “A new rainfrog of the genus Pristimantis (Anura, Brachycephaloidea) from central and eastern Panama.” The paper is currently available Open Access here: https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/63009/

To learn more about Dr. Batista, follow him on Twitter, @abelbatistapty, or multiple places on Instagram (@abelbat, @fundación_los_naturalistas, @goherpingpanama).

Be sure to follow New Species on Twitter (@PodcastSpecies), like the podcast page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast), and music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom).

If you would like to support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPodcast

To learn more about Dr. Batista, follow him on Twitter, @abelbatistapty, or multiple places on Instagram (@abelbat, @fundación_los_naturalistas, @goherpingpanama).

If you would like to support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPodcast

Previous Episode

S2, E02: A new amphipod from Japan!

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!

The title of the paper is “Maerid amphipods (Crustacea: Amphipoda) from Okinawa, Japan with description of a new species.” The paper is currently available here: https://www.mapress.com/zt/article/view/zootaxa.5000.5.6

If you would like to support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPodcast

Next Episode

S2, E04: Huge woolly flying squirrels from the Himalayas!

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.

This paper is in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society’s February 2022 issue, “Across the great divide: revision of the genus Eupetaurus (Sciuridae: Pteromyini), the woolly flying squirrels of the Himalayan region, with the description of two new species.” A copy of the paper is available here: https://academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/article/194/2/502/6287636

To learn more about Kris, follow him on Twitter: @khelgen

If you would like to support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPodcast