What on Earth?

And from the IISE's Department of Shameless Self Promotion, Sara Pennak and I have our new book What on Earth? 100 of Our Planet's Most Amazing New Species being released on April 30th.  Published by the Penguin Group under the Plume imprint, the book features 100 species discovered over the past ten years that are for one reason or another surprising, unexpected, or entertaining.

Here is an overview from the Penguin site:

Summary of What on Earth?

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A chameleon so tiny it can fit on your thumbnail? A spider named after David Bowie? A fungus that turns ants into zombies? What on Earth? What on Earth? is a compendium of the 100 coolest, weirdest, and most intriguing new species of this century as determined by the International Institute for Species Exploration. From animals to plants, fossils to bacteria, What on Earth? is an accessible, informative, and offbeat look at the creatures that also call our planet home, including: • A dangerous cobra that can spit its venom almost ten feet • A miniscule orchid that is less than a half-inch wide • A rainforest mushroom named after the cartoon character Spongebob Squarepants • A beautiful seahorse that changes colors to protect itself from predators • A stick insect that is as long as a man’s arm Featuring visually striking images alongside surprising facts about each new species, What on Earth? is a testament to the incredible and ever-evolving diversity of our planet.

The book is available for advanced orders through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other booksellers in the U.S. and overseas.

Essays at the beginning of each chapter introduce readers to various aspects of species exploration and each species includes beautiful (or, in some cases ugly) photographs along with natural history anecdotes.  The book, like the IISE's annual Top 10 New Species list (which, by the way, is coming on or near Linnaeus' birthday on May 23rd), is intended to make the public aware of the biodiversity crisis, the steady progress being made discovering and describing earth's species, and the special roles played by taxonomists, natural history museums, and botanical gardens in expanding our knowledge of the occupants of the biosphere.

WHAT'S THE POINT?
Why Leonardo's Mona Lisa overshadows the more captivating Genevra de'Benci escapes me, but that is an argument for another day.  I find something about Genevra speaks to me about the quiet, contemplative condition of being human and that she, lacking most of the physical traits I would normally associate with beauty, is one of the most beautiful women ever put to canvas.  When I was living in Washington, DC, I would sometimes steal off to the National Gallery on a lunch hour just to spend a few minutes with her, to marvel at Leonardo's technical abilities, yes, such as the reflection of light on each fine strand of her hair, but moreover, at the emotional connection that he was making with me across five centuries.

It is plausible that we could use isotope-ratio mass spec or other analyses to analyze the pigments in Leonardo's paints and uniquely identify these two works of art, but if that is all we knew of them, if we had not observed in careful detail and with deliberate attention the subtleties that make each unique, then what would we have achieved?  Some practical things, perhaps, such as insurance against frauds and a rapid, objective way to say from which painting a small scraping of paint had come, but this robs us of so, so much.  As important and impressively powerful as modern chemistry is, there is a human need in the world for art history, too.

DNA barcoding and phylogenetics are (at least for the sake of argument, as I have reservations) simple, cost-effective, objective, and require little knowledge of morphology of the organisms involved.  Even if they allow us to identify species and to say the relative sequence of their origins in phylogenetic history, so what?  Those are merely tools for applied work that tell us very little that we actually want or need to know about the organisms.  The only reason to want to identify a species is so that we can access its properties for what it can teach us about anatomy, adaptation, selection, behavior, evolution, character transmutation, biogeography, or something similarly more complex, unique, and interesting.  And the only reason to want a phylogeny is to help interpret, explain, and understand the origin and relationships among shared-derived evolutionary novelties.  Unless we have done the hard scholarly work of developing and corroborating theories about what the complex and subtle characters are that make each species unique, there is really nothing of much interest to be explained or to be contemplated once a cladogram is reconstructed.

As we set out to explore and document that vast majority of species on earth not yet known to us, it would be wise to ask ourselves "What is the point?"  If we only want an estimate of the number of living species, DNA-dominant systematics may be the most cost effective choice.  But I cannot imagine a more trivial pursuit.  Each species is for its own unique and improbable combination of characters truly a grand work of art.  As we fund finding chemical signatures to identify these works of selection, let's remember to fund some art history too.  It will make the exploration of biodiversity ever so much more interesting and of sufficient value to continue.

ETYMOLOGY OF ENTOMOLOGY
BBC BROADCAST


Tune into BBC Radio 4 on Saturday, March 9th, at 10:30 AM GMT as Dr. George McGavin hosts an tour of some the unusual and odd scientific names given to insect species.  I was interviewed for the program but have not heard the few minutes that may have survived the cutting room floor or any of the bulk of the program.  I am just delighted to see zoological nomenclature get some overdue attention.  Praises of the fantastic work of thousands of taxonomic zoologists, of the dedicated staff of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), and of the funding stewardship of the International Trust for Zoological Nomenclature (ITZN) are rarely sung.  Zoological nomenclature gives us a precise language with which to talk about literally millions of species, binominal unique identifiers for those species with which modern databases can be organized, and, thanks to the Linnaean tradition, a system of names that is sufficiently flexible to adapt to unanticipated growth in knowledge of phylogeny.  It would be easy to curl into a fetal ball and weep over the loss of species during the ongoing biodiversity crisis.  One thing that keeps taxonomists going is a sense of humor.  This sometimes seeps through the nomenclatural process and other times explodes through.  Whether subtle or in your face, humorous or ironic, dark or light hearted, zoologists have and continue to come up with names that simultaneously fulfill the requirements of the Code and science to give unto each species a unique name and allow a bit of individual personality to shine show, too.  Taxonomists have a particularly intimate relationship with the species they discover and it is fitting that species and their names reside at the interface of science and humanity.  I look forward to hearing the program and unless I am surprised by some diversion from the typical excellence of BBC and of Radio 4's producers, it should be worth the wait.  More information can be found at: 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01r4xw5.