Dear Varish,
If we count all the species that humans have described so far, it’s about 2 million. New species get added all the time—about 15,000 of them every year.
But we have no idea how many species we’ve never met. Scientists think there could be 5 million species out there. Or maybe billions.
We’ll only know for sure when we describe all those organisms.
I asked my friend Rich Zack what that means. He’s an insect scientist at Washington State University.
He told me how we identify and name a new species.
Imagine we’re in my backyard collecting insects together. We see a teeny, tiny parasitic wasp. That’s a wasp that lays its eggs inside another organism.
A tiny parasitic wasp laid eggs inside this caterpillar. The baby wasps chowed down on the caterpillar’s insides. Then they spun white cocoons. Inside, they transformed into adult wasps (blue arrow). If you ever see something like this, it’s too late to help the caterpillar. Plus, these wasps are helpers. Their gnarly life cycle keeps caterpillars from chomping up too many plants. Image: ©Beatriz Moisset, blue arrow added by Dr. Universe
Zack is an expert, so he’s pretty sure our wasp is new to science. We collect a series of them—about 20 wasps, including both sexes. That will keep us from finding one freaky mutant and calling it a new species.
But just one wasp will become the official type specimen, or holotype. That’s like the model example of our new species. The rest of the wasps in our series are called paratypes.
“We put that type specimen in front of us,” Zack said. “Then we start at one end of the insect and write down everything we see until we get to the other end.”
Our description includes every possible detail. We measure all the wasp’s parts. We use a dissecting microscope to count the segments of its antennae and the itty-bitty hairs on its feet. We report on its wing veins, eyes and mouth parts. All of this is our wasp’s morphology, or what its body looks like.
We also note any variation we see in our series and anything we noticed about our wasp’s behavior or habitat. We add pictures that show different parts of our wasp. We might examine its DNA.
By now, we’re certain we have a new species. So, it’s time to name it.
A scientific name includes a genus name and a species name. If our wasp is closely related to an existing group of wasps, we’ll give it the same genus name as those guys. Then we’ll pick a unique species name and make sure it conforms to the rules of Latin or ancient Greek.
Most names relate to where the organism lives, what it looks like or what it does. Sometimes organisms are named after someone.
“Some people come up with some pretty outlandish names,” Zack said. “They may be criticized by their colleagues, but there’s not a darn thing they can do about it because you’re allowed to pick whatever you want.”
There’s a sea slug (left) named for Barack Obama, Placida barackobamai. And a fly (right) named for Beyoncé, Scaptia beyonceae. The -i and -ae endings are from Latin. © uwkwaj ©Bryan D. Lessard
This is a shore fly (left) from the group Donaceus. Dr. Zack described a similar one and named it after a scientist friend, Donaceus azhari. Having a species named for you is an honor…usually. This seed insect (right) is called Aphanus rolandri. A famous scientist was mad at his student, so he named the insect after him as an insult. ©James Bailey ©Gilles San Martin
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Now we send our description to a scientific journal. Other scientists will check our work—called peer review. We might need to make a few changes or answer questions. Once our description is accepted, that’s our wasp’s name forever.
We carefully preserve our type specimen and entrust it to a museum or somewhere safe. People 100 years from now will be able to look at it and review our work.
The coolest thing about finding and describing new species is that anybody can do it—including scientists, regular people and kids like you.
It’s mostly about spe-seeing the world around you with a careful, curious eye.
Sincerely,
Dr. Universe