One of the most important ways of expressing the scientific value of natural history collections is the production of collection-based papers. This blog explores our commitment to making the arthropod collection of the Manchester Museum available for research and overviews the papers published between August 2018 and July 2019. In all cases, the Manchester Museum is used as a permanent depository of the studied type and voucher specimens.
In total, 28 scientific papers based on specimens or data from the Museum’s Entomology Collection were published by researchers from nine countries (France, Belgium, Russian, Brazil, Poland, China, Iran, South Africa and the UK). The researchers were from research institutes, museums and universities, including, Institute of Systematic and Ecology of Animals (Russia), Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia (Brazil), Entomological Society (China), Insect Centre (Russia), Muséum des Sciences Naturelles et de Préhistoire de Chartres (France), University of Wroclaw (Poland), University of Tehran (Iran), The University of Manchester (UK) and the associated staff of Manchester Museum.
The University of Manchester staff and volunteers (Professor Laurence Cook, Michael Dockery, Claire Miles, Diana Arzuza, and Dr Dmitri Logunov) published seven articles, describing collectors and important and unusual collections, for example:
- The entomological legacy of Robert Wylie Lloyd (1868–1958), who made a major donation to the Entomology Department; the extent of his donation (British and European beetles and butterflies) and his motivation as a naturalist are discussed (Cook L. 2019).
- An overview of the John and Francis Murphy Spider Collection, the largest one ever acquired by the Museum and its description as a valuable resource for arachnologists (Arzuza Buelvas D. 2019).
- A complete summary of the Sphingidae (hawkmoths) collection held in the Manchester Museum’s Lepidoptera collections, incuding a full species list (British and worldwide) and information of collectors and collections (Miles, 2019).
- The Lepidoptera collection of William Raymond Wooff (1929–2006), the content of this unusual collection (butterfly/moth wings mounted on index cards), with reliable data about distribution and habitat, is explored in this paper (Dockery M. & Logunov D.V. 2018).
- Examples of industrial melanism and its rapid adaptive response to a changing environment in Britain in 19th century using specimens of the Peppered Moth (Cook L. 2018).
- An obituary of Dr Eric Duffey, British arachnologist, ecologist and conservationist; details of his professional life and contribution to the Manchester Museum’s Entomology collection are given (Logunov D.V. 2019).


Topics covered by the publications include taxonomy, systematics and phylogeny (18 papers), including descriptions of new species and genera, and new faunistic records. Three papers were focused on surveys and one is an identification guide. Taxa in such publications included species of Araneae (spiders), Coleoptera (beetles), Lepidoptera (butterflies), Phasmatodea (stick insects), Mantodea (mantis) and Trichoptera (caddis flies), see Figure 1.

The order Araneae (spiders) is the group with the most papers published (13 in total), this is mainly due to the taxonomic expertise and scientific connections of the current Curator of Arthropods, Manchester Museum. Dr Dmitri Logunov has described two new spider species, including a jumping spider from Hong Kong that mimics lichen moth caterpillars and is named after the famous US childrens’ author, Eric Carle, who published the book ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ (Logunov D.V. & Obenauer S. 2019). This new species was discovered during a City Nature Challenge event in a park on the outskirts of Hong Kong. See here for more information.

Coleoptera represented the second taxa with most papers published (7 in total). The papers included descriptions of new species from the Himalayas, new records and identification keys from the Brazilian Amazon Region, a monograph of the Afrotropical Cassidinae with description of seven new species, and taxonomy reviews and new species from southern Asia.
The order Trichoptera (caddis flies) featured in phylogenetic research and in a revision of a ‘chimeric’ European genus. The order Phasmatodea (stick insects) featured in a description of three new stick insect species from Vietnam, and Mantodea (praying mantises) in the description of a new genus and two new species of praying mantis from the Vietnam.
All the publications were peer-reviewed. The most popular journals for these publications were Arthopoda Selecta (specialised in morphology, taxonomy, life histories, zoogeography, phylogeny and evolution of arthropods); Zootaxa (journal for animal taxonomists) and the British entomological journal ‘Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine’ published four times a year.

A complete list of publications:
- Arzuza Buelvas D. 2019. The Murphy spider collection at the Manchester Museum: a valuable research resource for arachnologists. Journal of Natural Science Collections, 6: 48–59.
- Azarkina G.N. & L.A. Trilikauskas. 2019. Halocosa gen.n., a new genus of Lycosidae (Araneae) from the Palaearctic, with a redescription of H. cereipes (L. Koch, 1878). Zootaxa, 4629(4): 555-570. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4629.4.4
- Azarkina G.N. & Zamani A. 2019. The Aelurillina Simon, 1901 (Aranei: Salticidae) of Iran: a check-list and three new species of Aelurillus Simon, 1884 and Proszynskiana Logunov, 1996. Arthropoda Selecta, 28(1): 83–97.
- Bevilaqua M. & da Fonseca C.R.V. 2018. Passalidae (Coleoptera: Scarabaeoidea) from the west-most Brazilian Amazon Region: checklist, new records, and identification key. Neotrop. Entomolol. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13744-018-0656-x
- Borowiec L. & Świętojańska J. 2018. A monograph of the Afrotropical Cassidinae (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae). Part 5. Revision of the genus Aethiopocassis Spaeth. Zootaxa, 4488(1): 001–099. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4488.1.1
- Cook L. 2018. Records of industrial melanism in British moths. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2018, XX: 1–5.
- Cook L. 2019. Beetles, butterflies and bibliophilia: the entomological legacy of Robert Wylie Lloyd. Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine,155: 3–14.
- Dockery M. & Logunov D.V. 2018. The Lepidoptera Collection of William Raymond Wooff (1929–2006) in the Manchester Museum. Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine,154: 271–295.
- Ho W.C.G., 2018. Three new species of genus Pylamenes Stal (Phasmatodea: Heteropteridae: Dataminae) from Vietnam. Zoological Systematics, 43(3): 276-282.
- Kazantsev S.V. 2018. New and little known species of Lycostomus Motschulsky, 1861 (Coleoptera: Lycidae) from southern Asia. Russian Entomological Journal, 27(4): 371-380.
- Keith D. 2019. Sur Phaeochrous pseudintermedius Kuijten, 1978 (Coleoptera Scarabaeoidea Hybosoridae). L’Entomologiste, 75(2): 101-102.
- Lecigne S., Cornic J.-F., Oger P. & van Keer J. 2019. Celerrimus n. gen. (Araneae, Philodromidae) et description de Celerrimus duffeyi n. sp., une espèce très singuliere d’Europe occidentale. Revue arachnologique, serie 2, no 6: 32-51.
- Logunov D.V. 2019. Obituary: Eric Arthur Gerald Duffey 1922-2019. Arachnology, 18(1): 47–52.
- Logunov D.V. 2019. Taxonomic notes on theHarmochirina Simon, 1903 from South and South-East Asia (Aranei: Salticidae). Arthropoda Selecta, 28(1): 99–112.
- Logunov D.V. & Obenauer S. 2019. A new species of Uroballus Simon, 1902 (Araneae: Salticidae) from Hong Kong, a jumping spider that appears to mimic lichen moth caterpillars. Israel Journal of Entomology, 49(1): 1–9. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2632730
- Logunov D.V. & Schäfer M. 2019. A new species of Pseudomogrus Simon, 1937 (Araneae: Salticidae) from the Canary Islands. Arachnology, 18(2): 121–126.
- Miles, C. 2019. Sphingidae (Lepidoptera) in the collections of Manchester Museum. Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine 155: 77–106.
- Nekhaeva A.A., Marusik, Yu.M., Buckle D. 2019. A survey of the Siberio-Nearctic genus Masikia Millidge, 1984 (Aranei: Linyphiidae: Erigoninae). Arthropoda Selecta, 28(1): 157–168.
- Olah J., Andersen T., Beshkov S., Ciubuc C., Coppa G., Ibrahimi H., Kovacs T., Olah J. (JR.) & Szczesny B. 2018. Unified phylogenetic species concept: taking subspecies and race out of science: postmodern theory applied to the Potamophylax cingulatus group (Trichoptera, Limnephilidae). Opusc. Zool. Budapest, 49(1): 33–70.
- Oláh J., Andersen T., Beshkov S., Coppa G., Ruiz Garcia A. & Johanson K.A. 2019. Revision of European Wormaldia species (Trichoptera, Philopotamidae): Chimeric taxa of integrative organization. Opusc. Zool. Budapest, 50(1): 31–85.
- Rücker W.H. 2018. Latridiidae und Merophysiidae der Wets-Paläarktis. Neuwied, W.H. Rücker Selbstverlag, 676 pp.
- Tshernyshev S. & Kopetz A. 2018. Myrmecospectra Motchulsky, 1858 – the correct name for Myrmecophasma Bourgeois, 1885 (Insecta: Coleoptera: Cleroidea: Malachiidae), with a review of species and a description of a new species from the Himalayas. In: Hartman M., Barclay M.V.L. & Weipert J. (eds), Biodiversität und Naturausstattung im Himalaya VI., Verein der Freunde und Förderer des Naturkundemuseum Erfurt, Erfurt, pp. 443‒453.
- Vermeersch X.H.C., Stiewe M.B.D. & Shcherbakov E.O. 2019. A new genus of praying mantis, Chlorocalis n. gen., with two new species from the Greater Mekong region (Mantodea: Mantidae), Annales de la Société entomologique de France (N.S.), DOI: 10.1080/00379271.2018.1562380
- Zamani A. & Marusik Yu.M. 2018. A new species of the hersiliid spiders (Aranei: Hersiliidae) from Iran. Euroasian Entomological Journal, 17(4): 273–275.
- Zamani A. & Marusik Yu.M. 2018. New species and records of Filistatidae (Arachnida: Aranei) from Iran. Arthropoda Selecta, 27(2): 121–128.
- Zamani A., Marusik Yu.M. & Malek-Hosseini M.J. 2018. A new species of Tegenaria Latreille, 1804 (Araneae: Agelenidae) from western Iran. Zootaxa, 4444(1): 95–97.
- Zamani A., Seiedy M., Saboori A. & Marusik Yu.M. 2018. The spider genus Pterotricha in Iran, with the description of a new genus (Araneae, Gnaphosidae). ZooKeys, 777: 17–41.
- Zonstein S. 2018. A revision of the spider genus Anemesia (Araneae, Cyrtaucheniidae). European Journal of Taxonomy 485: 1–100. https://doi.org/10.5852/ejt.2018.485