MILLIPEDE EXPERTS GET LEG UP ON COMPETITION
Make no mistake, taxonomists are in a race against the clock or, more precisely, against extinction, to discover and describe earth's spectacular diversity of species before much of what they can teach us about the origins and history of life is lost. Many of the most improbable and amazing evolutionary achievements come (no pun intended) in the form of morphology that is so unique and so complex that it is not easily described. In the past, doing drawings or printing large numbers of photographs was simply prohibitively expensive and hence long and meticulously worded descriptions. Now, with online digital images, such constraints are removed.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, what is a rotatable SEM image worth? Stoev et al. beautifully describe the use of such images by Attari et al to visually "describe" the complex morphology of millipede genitalia and the use of their elegant images in a visual identification key to species. Such innovative cybertaxonomy is ushering in a new age of species exploration just in time to meaningfully confront the biodiversity crisis.
Stoev et al:
Stoev et al, 2013, ZooKeys 328:1-3.
Akkari et al:
Akkari et al., 2013, ZooKeys 328: 5-45.
