Posts tagged blogging

Random thing I just stumbled across: a paper describing a new genus & species of soil mite (Osperalycus tenerphagus) is the most viewed paper in the Journal of Natural History. In fact, it has more views than the rest of the top 10 most viewed papers for the journal combined (which includes a touching memorial to Charles Darwin, and an important paper by Alfred Russell Wallace). 

But, why? Why would a taxonomic paper on an obscure soil mite from Ohio be the most viewed article in a journal with 176 years of history*? From what I can tell, it’s largely because Quentin Wheeler wrote about it in his blog at The Guardian. While probably less than a dozen people will ever see or collect this mite themselves, at least 10,000 people now know it exists thanks to social media and blogging.

I don’t want to read too much into this, I just think it’s an interesting example of social media’s potential to breathe new life and interest into disciplines like Natural History & Taxonomy. 

*Obviously this is only counting views since the papers have been put online & is skewed, but still.