Notices

This page is designed for research announcements, requests for assistance,  reports of ongoing programs and notices of new publications on Auchenorrhyncha. All suitable items to be sent to the Tymbal editor: Dr M.J. Fletcher, Orange Agricultural Institute.

Please Note: Items may be subject to peer review prior to posting.  Items posted onto this page will remain on the site for a maximum of 12 months.

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Posted: 26 October 2009

Death of Prof. Olli Halkka

This is to inform you about the sad news on the recent death of Professor Olli Halkka, our colleague who during his entire life advanced considerably our understanding on the polymorphism of Philaenus spumarius. He died at Meilahti hospital on the 8th October 2009 at 80 years old. His funeral will be held only with his family, following his wish, on the 24th.

For those fortunates who can recall it, Olli with Dr Meinander hosted the 4th Auchenorrhyncha Meeting at the wonderful Tvarminne Zoological Station in 1981!

Kind regards

José Alberto Quartau

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Posted: 10 July 2009

REQUEST FOR FLOW - Fulgoromorpha Lists on the Web.

Dear all,

For a new version of FLOW that will be updated in the next few months, I'm looking for all vernacular names (or translations) corresponding to 'Fulgoromorpha' such as, for instance, 'planthoppers' is used in English.

Examples are: Planthoppers (UK), Talakitik (Tagalog), Fulgores (Fr), Spitzkopfzikaden (Germany), Fulgoromorfos (Spain), etc.

With a longer term objective, any source or direct data for other vernacular planthopper names of species or groups will also be welcome (e.g. Nilaparvata lugens is known as the brown planthopper, BPH, etc)

Thank you very much

Thierry (bourgoin@mnhn.fr)

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Posted: 7 May 2009

Reinhard Remane died April 27th 2009

Reinhard Remane in a typical pose, Luxemburg August 2005
[Photo: Werner.E. Holzinger]

The great expert taxonomist of Western Palaearctic Auchenorrhyncha sadly died on 27th April 2009.

Shortly before his 80th anniversary birthday on March 21st he was admitted to hospital with a slow-growing type of cancer, which had, however, progressed very far. Some of us had the chance to phone him for a last time, and there was at least some hope that he might leave hospital, although in a wheel-chair. But then, last Monday night, he passed away, apparently peacefully in his sleep.

Hopper students around the world knew him as an authority in taxonomy and systematics, although his publication record in international journals was weak. People came (like a pilgrimage!) to the Philipps University of Marburg, Germany, where he was a Professor of Zoology, to meet him and to share in his knowledge. At least in the western half of the Palaearctic there are few, if any, who did not visit at least once in their career. Until February he had guests for whom he identified and confirmed specimens.

Until his retirement in 1994, he compiled an almost complete xerocopy file of taxonomic drawings of Auchenorrhyncha from the entire world literature. All figures of genitalia and other relevant characters were glued together on one or few single sheets, which enabled him not only to identify nearly all properly described species, but also to realize immediately, if descriptions of different authors referred to the same species or not.

From the beginning of the 1960s until 2007 he travelled almost annually to western and southern Europe, northwestern Africa and the Macaronesian Islands. From these trips he brought back an enormous amount of Auchenorrhyncha and Heteroptera, many of which he described as new species in “his” journal Marburger entomologische Publikationen. Further, he collected extensive material in Iraq, Sudan and Nepal.

His ability to recognize the faintest differences between very closely related species even in the sweep net was probably unique in the world. No one knew the really difficult groups such as Psammotettix, Macropsis, Zygina, Kelisia, Mocydiopsis and many others as he did, and he was probably the only person who could even identify most females. His preparation technique of gluing specimens onto a card with opened genital capsule behind it was fantastic and preserved the aesthetics of these insects in a perfect way.

His memory was incredible. The writer of this notice remembers having him brought a leafhopper for identification in 1994. It was a female Psammotettix that could not be identified using any book or paper. Reinhard Remane identified it on the very first glimpse, stating that it was a species that had been found only twice before, in the 1930s and in 1960.

One of his great merits was to show everyone who met him, that barely any species is as clear as it is shown in identification books and that species are variable morphologically, ecologically and geographically. Usually he was the first to recognize which differences were constant and therefore could be used to discriminate between possible species.

Many of us remember him from conferences and meetings rising immediately after the end of a talk and telling the audience that he had been thinking about the presented issue for decades and often shedding new light on it. Despite his criticism, which was sometimes harsh, he was always open for all candidates to help them in all possible ways. He has played a major role in bringing together specialists and students to establish the Central European Auchenorrhyncha Study Group, which has become a vital and productive association.

He takes a huge knowledge into his grave. The gap he left cannot be filled. We will miss him a lot and we are grateful that we knew him.

Herbert Nickel
on behalf of the Central European Auchenorrhyncha Study Group

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Posted: 25 March 2009

Psyche special issue tribute to Charles Darwin

Endless Forms: The Frontiers of Biodiversity Discovery

One of the greatest endeavors of entomologists has been and continues to be the discovery and description of the millions of undescribed life forms. This year marks the 200th year since the birth of Charles Darwin on February 12, 1809. Origin of Species concludes with the following passage: “There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

No fewer than two literary works have taken portions of this sentence as their titles (This View of Life by Stephen J. Gould, and From So Simple A Beginning, a collection of Darwin’s four great works). So, in honor of the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth, we call for papers that represent the frontiers of research in the discovery of biodiversity, including, but not limited to:

• Newly explored habitats (e.g., extreme arboreal and entirely aerial)

• Novel collecting techniques (e.g., canopy traps)

• New investigative techniques (e.g., sibling or cryptic species discovered due to host differences, male-female signaling, genomic differences)

• The “creation” of new species due to introduced plants (e.g., Rhagoletis)

• Regions of the world that have recently become available for field work (e.g., Cambodia, Mozambique, Rwanda)

• Cybertaxonomy and digital methods for rapid species description

To contribute to this volume, or for further information, go to http://www.hindawi.com/journals/psyche/osi.html