scholarly journals The taxonomic status of Phyllonastes Heyer and Phrynopus peruvianus (Noble) (Lissamphibia, Anura): resurrection of Noblella Barbour

Zootaxa ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 1685 (1) ◽  
pp. 67 ◽  
Author(s):  
IGNACIO DE LA RIVA ◽  
JUAN C. CHAPARRO ◽  
JOSÉ M. PADIAL

Between December 1899 and August 1900, H. H. Keays collected zoological specimens in Departamento Puno, southern Peru. He shipped to the American Museum of Natural History a series of amphibians purportedly obtained near Juliaca, a locality at 3824 m a.s.l., close to the Lake Titicaca. From this series, Noble (1921) described a tiny frog named as Sminthillus peruvianus. Until then, the genus Sminthillus Barbour and Noble contained only the small Cuban species S. limbatus (Cope), and the broad geographic gap between the two species, together with some morphological arguments, led Noble to consider this generic assignment as provisional. Later, Barbour (1930) erected the genus Noblella to accommodate S. limbatus, but he did not define nor diagnose the genus. Subsequently, Lynch (1971) synonymyzed Noblella with Eleutherodactylus Duméril and Bibron and, eventually (Lynch 1975), with Phrynopus Peters.

ZooKeys ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1076 ◽  
pp. 9-24
Author(s):  
Silvia Andrade Justi ◽  
Carolina Dale

The taxonomic status of Triatoma dimidiata (Latreille, 1811) is, by far, the most discussed within Triatominae. Molecular studies have recovered at least three independently evolving lineages in T. dimidiata across its range. The original description of T. dimidiata (as Reduvius dimidiatus) included few taxonomic characters, and no types were assigned. To define and describe the cryptic diversity within T. dimidiata sensu lato (s.l.), a neotype must be designated. For this purpose, all 199 specimens identified as T. dimidiata from the collections of the Smithsonian Institution – National Museum of Natural History and the American Museum of Natural History, ranging from Peru to Mexico, were studied. Only one specimen (from Tumbes, Peru) matched the combination of characters as listed in the original description, and it is herein formally designated as the neotype for T. dimidiata. The neotype is morphologically described and DNA sequences of its whole mitochondrial genome and the nuclear second internal transcribed spacer region (ITS2), commonly used in triatomine molecular systematics studies, are presented and compared to other publicly available sequences of T. dimidiata s.l. in GenBank. Our results suggest that T. dimidiata sensu stricto (s.s.) is somewhat rare and, therefore, unlikely to serve as a major vector of Chagas disease.


2014 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary M. Fellers

Rollo Howard Beck (1870–1950) was a professional bird collector who spent most of his career on expeditions to the Channel Islands off southern California, the Galápagos Islands, South America, the South Pacific, and the Caribbean. Some of the expeditions lasted as long as ten years during which time he and his wife, Ida, were often working in primitive conditions on sailing vessels or camps set up on shore. Throughout these expeditions, Beck collected specimens for the California Academy of Sciences, the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at Berkeley (California), the American Museum of Natural History, and the Walter Rothschild Museum at Tring, England. Beck was one of the premier collectors of his time and his contributions were recognized by having 17 taxa named becki in his honor. Of these taxa, Beck collected 15 of the type specimens.


2008 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony G Picciano ◽  
Robert V. Steiner

Every child has a right to an education. In the United States, the issue is not necessarily about access to a school but access to a quality education. With strict compulsory education laws, more than 50 million students enrolled in primary and secondary schools, and billions of dollars spent annually on public and private education, American children surely have access to buildings and classrooms. However, because of a complex and competitive system of shared policymaking among national, state, and local governments, not all schools are created equal nor are equal education opportunities available for the poor, minorities, and underprivileged. One manifestation of this inequity is the lack of qualified teachers in many urban and rural schools to teach certain subjects such as science, mathematics, and technology. The purpose of this article is to describe a partnership model between two major institutions (The American Museum of Natural History and The City University of New York) and the program designed to improve the way teachers are trained and children are taught and introduced to the world of science. These two institutions have partnered on various projects over the years to expand educational opportunity especially in the teaching of science. One of the more successful projects is Seminars on Science (SoS), an online teacher education and professional development program, that connects teachers across the United States and around the world to cutting-edge research and provides them with powerful classroom resources. This article provides the institutional perspectives, the challenges and the strategies that fostered this partnership.


1960 ◽  
Vol 92 (10) ◽  
pp. 768-770 ◽  
Author(s):  
George P. Holland

In 1957 James R. Beer, Edwin F. Cook and Robert G. Schwab, of the University of Minnesota, conducted an investigation of mammals and their ectoparasites in the Chiricahua Mountains of southeastern Arizona. The area studied included varied habitats in the general vicinity of the Southwestern Research Station of the American Museum of Natural History at Portal. An account of this investigation has now been published (Beer et al., 1959).


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