Overview
- A peer-reviewed paper published Sept. 9 formally described 12 new plant-bug species organized into five new genera, including the genus Swiftiephylus that contains four species named S. taylorae, S. amator, S. intrepidus and S. poetorum.
- Doctoral student Sarah Schroeder of the University of California, Riverside led the work and said she selected the Swift-inspired names to draw public attention to taxonomy; the names follow rules of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature.
- The study examined 593 specimens that were collected in Australia between 1995 and 2004 and held in museum collections such as the American Museum of Natural History and the Australian Museum, with material originating from an NSF-funded Planetary Biodiversity Inventory project.
- The insects are small plant-feeding true bugs in the family Miridae that live on Australian she-oaks, have pale yellow bodies with red accents that likely help them blend with she-oak flowers, and are not known to be agricultural pests.
- Authors say the publicity from a high-profile eponym can help explain why formal species description matters for conservation, because unidentified species cannot be counted or protected and museum collections still contain many undescribed taxa.