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Trachusa.
No full text23, [1] p. : ill. (some col.) ; 26 cm.Herein we report on the nesting biology of ground-nesting Trachusa (Heteranthidium) larreae (Cockerell) from New Mexico and Arizona, an oligolege of creosote bush, Larrea tridentate (DC.) Coville (Zygophyllaceae). Nests are single, slanting, open burrows at the lower end of which are horizontal cells lined with resin collected from creosote bush, also the source of the orange, mealy-moist provisions. Eggs are placed on the surface of the provisions, and the first three instars remain in the same position as the eggs from which they hatched. The fourth instar separates its body from the provisions, and only the fifth (final larval) instar moves around the brood chamber while consuming remaining provisions and defecating prior to cocoon spinning. It is suggested that mid-dorsal body tubercles and an integumental body vestiture of short setae and setiform spicules restricted to this instar are adaptations enabling the movement of the fifth instar not only of this species but possibly those of other Megachilinae, all of which have a body vestiture and presumably mid-dorsal body tubercles. The cocoon is spun after most of the feces are voided. Like cocoons of many other Megachilidae, it bears a pronounced nipple at its anterior end. From its construction as well as by comparison with cocoons of other bee taxa, the nipple seems to serve a number of functions: it enables exchange between the interior air of the cocoon and the external ambient air; it screens out parasites and predators from attacking the cocoon inhabitant; and it probably regulates cell humidity. Eggs are briefly characterized, and three females each were found to have three ovarioles per ovary and to carry a single mature oocyte, which is classified as medium in Iwata and Sakagami's classification of egg/mature oocyte size relative to body size of female. The fifth instars (both pre- and post-defecating forms) are described and found similar to those of other Anthidiini
Catalog der ornithologischen Sammlung, 1865, Mai.
Get PDF346, 20 p. ; 34 cm.A catalog prepared by the author for his ornithological collection most of which is now the property of the American Museum of Natural History. Consists mainly of listing of South American birds. Also includes Prince Maximilian's views about the status and nomenclature of the species he owned
Goblin spider genus Triaeris.
No full text36 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 26 cm. Part of the oonopid PBI project. Cf. acknowledgments.The type species of the goblin spider genus Triaeris Simon, T. stenaspis Simon, was originally described from Saint Vincent in the Lesser Antilles, but has attained a pantropical distribution and even has introduced populations living in European greenhouses. At least one of those European populations is parthenogenetic, and no males of the species have ever been found. Simon later assigned one additional species to the genus, T. equestris, from Príncipe; that species is also known only from females, but resembles T. stenaspis in having an unusually elongated, ventrally spinose patella on leg I. Numerous other species, from both the Old and New worlds, have subsequently been assigned to Triaeris; all those taxa seem to be either synonyms (including T. berlandi Lawrence from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, T. lepus Suman from Hawaii, and T. lacandonus Brignoli from Guatemala, which are newly synonymized with T. stenaspis) or misplaced in the genus. The modified patella I occurs in four new West African species (T. moca from Bioko and T. fako, T. oku, and T. menchum from Cameroon); unfortunately, those species are also represented only by females. Few other gamasomorphines have patellar spines, and most of those that do have such spines belong to a group of genera in which the males have heavily sclerotized endites, suggesting that Triaeris might belong to that group. Searching West African collections of such taxa revealed two additional new species, T. togo and T. ibadan, that are each represented by both sexes. Female genitalic structure suggests that T. togo is the closest relative of T. stenaspis
Khaan mckennai.
No full text77 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 26 cm.The monophyly of Oviraptoridae, a group of theropod dinosaurs, which share a uniquely bizarre morphology, has never been called into question due in large part to their unusual complex of characters. Despite a vivid recent history of discovery and broad public appeal the nature of their morphological diversity has not been explored extensively. Many previous descriptions of oviraptorid taxa are lost in the obscurity of hard-to-find journals, and many lack illustrations of what are now recognized as phylogenetically important characters. The primary goal of this paper is to provide a relatively comprehensive descriptive morphology and illustrations for one member of Oviraptoridae, namely Khaan mckennai, with an emphasis on characters that can be used to establish a phylogenetic hypothesis for the taxon and group as a whole. K. mckennai is a small-bodied, crestless oviraptorid that is known from pristine material that has been collected from the late Cretaceous sediments of Mongolia. Similar to other oviraptorids, it shares a wide number of features in common with extant birds. However, when these characters are put in the context of Oviraptorosauria, including relatively new, more basal forms like Incisivosaurus gauthieri and Caudipteryx zoui, character states such as extreme pneumatization of the skull or the reduction in the number of caudal vertebrae are found to be either homoplastic for the two groups or plesiomorphic for a more inclusive clade
A visit to Florida in the early part of the century.
No full text12 leaves, 25 cm. Undated ms., handwritten in blue ink on lined paper; signed at end “L. Peale” (possibly Titian's grandson Lincoln or his second wife Lucy, or a relative named Louis Peale) in ochre ink; heavily annotated and edited in pencil in another handwriting. For transcription, see Porter, Charlotte M. “Following Bartram’s ‘track’: Titian Ramsay Peale’s Florida journey.” Florida historical quarterly, v. 61, no. 4 (Apr. 1983), p. 431-444.“An account of a collecting expedition to Florida and Georgia sponsored by the Academy of Natural Sciences, Dec. 1817-April 1818. The expedition party included William Maclure, Thomas Say, George Ord and Titian Ramsay Peale
A phylogenomic perspective on annelid evolution with emphasis on the evolution of bloodfeeding in leeches (Clitellata, Hirudinida)
No full textxiii, 180 p. : ill. (some col.)Annelida Lamarck, 1809 embodies over 17,000 species of segmented worms such as leeches, earthworms, lugworms, sandworms and clamworms. The phylum has
traditionally been divided into two main orders: Sedentaria Lamarck, 1818 and Errantia
Andouin & Milne Edwards, 1834, yet Sedentaria is seldom recovered as monophyletic
and Errantia has only been recovered as monophyletic in one study. Recently, a large
amino acid data set of expressed sequence tags (EST’s) was created for Annelida and its close allies. The phylogenetic analyses of this data set, based on Bayesian inference and Maximum Likelihood estimations, recovered both Errantia and Sedentaria as
monophyletic groups. Herein, I assess whether or not this hypothesis is also recovered
by a nucleotide representation of the amino acids, and if the result is general across
optimality criteria. Whereas parsimony analyses of the largest molecular character data
set compiled for Annelida fails to recover Sedentaria or Errantia as monophyletic
entities, re-analysis of the original amino acid data set does recover Errantia as
monophyletic but with low support. In conjunction with previous studies, the analyses
presented here suggest that the phylogenetic hypotheses of relationships both within Annelida, and between the phylum and its constituent taxa are still unstable and that
finding suitable data for resolving this is an important yet problematic issue. Although medicinal leeches have long been used as treatment for various ailments because of their potent anticoagulation factors, the debates regarding the evolution of bloodfeeding and the ancestral feeding preference of leeches are still contentious. Moreover, neither the full diversity of salivary components that inhibit coagulation, much less the evolutionary selection acting on them, has been thoroughly investigated in a comparative manner. To address these questions, the full genome of the non-bloodfeeding leech Helobdella robusta was screened for anticoagulation factors. In
addition, EST libraries from salivary glands of two species of medicinal leeches, Hirudo
verbana and Aliolimnatis fenestrata, were constructed. For H. robusta, a total of eight
loci matching leech antiplatelet proteins and positioned as a tandem array, were
recovered with significantly low e-values, suggesting that this leech possesses
ancestrally-inherited anticoagulants. In the medicinal leeches, expression of salivary
peptides greatly exceed expectations and also suggest the feasibility of identifying the
important active sites of the proteins through selective pressure analyses. Although symbiotic associations between bacteria and leeches are well documented, several questions concerning the function of the bacterial symbionts and their phylogenetic positioning still remain. To address this and other issues, herein I characterize and annotate a large subset of the genome of Reichenowia parasitica, an phaproteo-bacterial endosymbiont of the freshwater leech Placobdella parasitica. Results suggest that R. parasitica possesses genes coding for proteins related to nitrogen fixation, iron/vitamin B translocation and plasmid survival, and that the bacterium interacts with its host in part by transmembrane signaling. The phylogenetic analyses support the nesting of R. parasitica within the plant-inhabiting Rhizobiaceae, as sister to a group containing Agrobacterium and Rhizobium species.Richard Gilder Graduate School at the American Museum of Natural History
Early 19th-century names.
No full text21 p. : col. ill. ; 26 cm.
"May 11, 2011."Prince Maximilian zu Wied's great exploration of coastal Brazil in 1815-1817 resulted in important collections of reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals, many of which were new species later described by Wied himself. The bulk of his collection was purchased for the American Museum of Natural History in 1869, although many "type specimens" had disappeared earlier. Wied carefully identified his localities but did not designate type specimens or type localities, which are taxonomic concepts that were not yet established. Information and manuscript names on a fraction (17 species) of his Brazilian reptiles and amphibians were transmitted by Wied to Prof. Heinrich Rudolf Schinz at the University of Zurich. Schinz included these species (credited to their discoverer "Princ. Max.") in the second volume of Das Thierreich ... (1822). Most are junior objective synonyms of names published by Wied. However, six of the 17 names used by Schinz predate Wied's own publications. Three were manuscript names never published by Wied because he determined the species to be previously known. (1) Lacerta vittata Schinz, 1822 (a nomen oblitum) = Lacerta striata sensu Wied (a misidentification, non Linnaeus nec sensu Merrem) = Kentropyx calcarata Spix, 1825, herein qualified as a nomen protectum. (2) Polychrus virescens Schinz, 1822 = Lacerta marmorata Linnaeus, 1758 (now Polychrus marmoratus). (3) Scincus cyanurus Schinz, 1822 (a nomen oblitum) = Gymnophthalmus quadrilineatus sensu Wied (a misidentification, non Linnaeus nec sensu Merrem) = Micrablepharus maximiliani (Reinhardt and Lütken, "1861" [1862]), herein qualified as a nomen protectum. Qualifying Scincus cyanurus Schinz, 1822, as a nomen oblitum also removes the problem of homonymy with the later-named Pacific skink Scincus cyanurus Lesson (= Emoia cyanura). The remaining three names used by Schinz are senior objective synonyms that take priority over Wied's names. (4) Bufo cinctus Schinz, 1822, is senior to Bufo cinctus Wied, 1823; both, however, are junior synonyms of Bufo crucifer Wied, 1821 = Chaunus crucifer (Wied). (5) Agama picta Schinz, 1822, is senior to Agama picta Wied, 1823, requiring a change of authorship for this poorly known species, to be known as Enyalius pictus (Schinz). (6) Lacerta cyanomelas Schinz, 1822, predates Teius cyanomelas Wied, 1824 (1822-1831)--both nomina oblita. Wied's illustration and description shows cyanomelas as apparently conspecific with the recently described but already well-known Cnemidophorus nativo Rocha et al., 1997, which is the valid name because of its qualification herein as a nomen protectum. The preceding specific name cyanomelas (as corrected in an errata section) is misspelled several ways in different copies of Schinz's original description ("cyanomlas," "cyanom las," and "cyanom"). Loosening, separation, and final loss of the last three letters of movable type in the printing chase probably accounts for the variant misspellings
Osteology of Gobiderma pulchrum (Monstersauria, Lepidosauria, Reptilia). (Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, no. 362)
Get PDF88 p. : ill., map ; 26 cm.Joint expeditions by the American Museum of Natural History and Mongolian Academy of Sciences have recovered significant new remains of the basal monstersaur Gobiderma pulchrum. We describe these new specimens in detail and also revisit the originally described material in order to more fully understand this pivotal anguimorph taxon. The newly discovered specimens include skull and postcranial materials that add dramatically to the understanding of the osteology of Gobiderma pulchrum. We revise the diagnosis of this species, adding to the previously published diagnosis the following character states: premaxillary nasal process is narrowest mediolaterally; postfrontal and postorbital remain unfused; postorbital extends posteriorly for almost the entire length of the supratemporal fenestra; the Vidian canal is posteriorly enclosed by the parabasisphenoid; an anterior coracoid emargination is present; the pelvis is completely fused; and the lateral plantar tubercle is distally placed. A phylogenetic analysis confirms the placement of Gobiderma pulchrum as a non-helodermatid monstersaur. As such, the fact that it is known from reasonably complete remains makes it pivotal for understanding character evolution within Monstersauria. The Djadokhta Formation includes several carnivorous/insectivorous lizards and theropod dinosaurs--more than is usual for extant communities, but perhaps analogous in some ways to parts of modern Australia