BUTTERFLIES AND A BEETLE — Curator of Insects Derek Sikes is in Portland, Oregon this week for annual meetings of both the Entomological Society of America and the Entomological Collections Network. He’ll be accepting the position of president-elect for the Coleopterists Society, an international scientific society devoted to the study of beetles.

His talk about the museum’s insect collection was well-received on Twitter (see photo above). He focused on our database and its use inside and outside of the museum.

Sikes also saw this historic beetle specimen IRL.

Thanks to Max Barclay for the photo.

Darwinilus sedarisi (only known sample in existence), Collected by Charles Darwin in 1832 from Argentina, South America

Sample provided by Max Barclay of the @Natural History Museum, London and characterized by Stylianos Chatzimanolis of the University of Tennessee.

Darwinilus sedarisi is a rove beetle species, the only one in the genus Darwinilus. It is named after Charles Darwin and David Sedaris. It is found in Argentina, where a specimen of the beetle was collected by Charles Darwin in 1832 during the voyage of the HMS Beagle. It wasn’t formally named as a new species until 2014.