This fossil represents a new genus and species of extinct aneuretopsychid, Jeholopsyche liaoningensis, recently described in a paper in the journal ZooKeys by Conrad Labandeira of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, and Dong Ren and ChungKun Shih of the College of Life Sciences, Capital Normal University, Beijing. The aneuretopsychidae are a family of [...] [...more]
A mineral dealer from Dallas recently donated this fine specimen of Chinese cinnabar–the common ore of mercury–to the Department of Mineral Sciences of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. This twinned crystal is approximately 3 centimeters across. The specimen was donated to replace one that was damaged during the Aug. 23, 2011 earthquake. (Photo [...] [...more]
This photo shows developing embryonic cells of the coral species Acropora tenuis, from the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Researchers from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology and other partnering organizations spent two weeks at the end of November collecting sperm and embryonic cells during spawning from this and one other [...] [...more]
Lodgepole pine drawn in 1898 by U.S. National Herbarium illustrator Frederick Andrew Walpole. [...more]
“Camping With the Sioux: Fieldwork Diary of Alice Cunningham Fletcher ” is a Web site of the Smithsonian’s National Anthropological Archives consisting of two fascinating journals kept by American anthropologist Alice Fletcher (1838-1923) during a six-week venture into Plains Indian territory in 1881. Drawings of the plains, Indian reservations, and her many campsites in eastern [...] [...more]
This lithograph of the hummingbird Trochilus maria from the 1849 book Illustrations of the Birds of Jamacia was published in a recent paper in the journal Zootaxa “Rediscovery of the holotype of Trochilus maria Gosse, 1849 (Aves: Apodiformes: Trochilidae)” by Gary Graves of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and Robert Prys-Jones of the [...] [...more]
Molynocoelia erwini, is a new species of fruit fly from Ecuador recently described by USDA entomologist Allen Norrbom, who works in the Systematic Entomology Laboratory of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. The discovery of this species in Ecuador extends the known range of the genus Diptera: Tephritidae. It was named [...] [...more]
This image shows one of three newly discovered North Atlantic deep sea acorn worms–Purple species–recently captured by scientists from deep in the mid-Atlantic Ocean. These worms are members of the family Torquaratoridae. DNA analysis conducted by Karen Osborn of the Department of Invertebrate Zoology of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History confirmed their identity. [...] [...more]
This fossil represents a new genus and species of extinct aneuretopsychid, Jeholopsyche liaoningensis, recently described in a paper in the journal ZooKeys by Conrad Labandeira of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, and Dong Ren and ChungKun Shih of the College of Life Sciences, Capital Normal University, Beijing. The aneuretopsychidae are a family of long-proboscid insects that lived in Asia from the Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous. The paper documents the first formal record of fossil Aneuretopsychidae in China. The new fossils reveal previously unknown and detailed structure of the mouthparts, antennae, head, thorax, legs and abdomen of this distinctive insect lineage.
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