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Joe McHugh stands in a murky creek
examining a mossy log. In a bright orange mushroom, he finds what he's been
hunting: a tiny beetle. It's not particularly striking, but he's never seen
another just like it. He carefully places it into a vial of alcohol.
McHugh's not a Boy Scout working on his insect study badge. He's the University
of Georgia's coleopterist, a beetle specialist.
He and his research team are working to identify undescribed beetle species.
Scientists figure beetle species numbers at 3 million to 10 million.
"So far, only about 365,000 beetle species have been described," McHugh
said. "To put that number into perspective, one out of every five known
species on Earth is some type of beetle."
Since McHugh joined the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
faculty in 1995, he's discovered and described 18 new beetle species. He found
three new genera, too, and was the first to describe the immature stages of
several species.
"Immature beetles aren't simply small beetles," he said. "They're
grub-like larvae, just as caterpillars are the immature forms of butterflies.
The adults and larvae of one beetle species can be totally different in appearance,
behavior and ecology. In some cases, you'd never realize that the different
forms represent the same species."
McHugh and his team recently finished the first year of a five-year, $724,000
National Science Foundation Partnerships for Enhancing Expertise in Taxonomy
grant project.
Under the grant, the team is focusing on the Cerylonid series, a group of
little-known beetles. This group of seven families includes ladybugs and their
close relatives.
The group is writing descriptions and keys, photographing the various species
and developing a Web site to share the new information with scientists worldwide.
When a systematist describes a new species, s/he gets to name it. McHugh named
one in honor of his high school science mentor, another for his master's thesis
advisor and one in honor of his wife Roxanne. Because his wife tolerated his "always
being out bug hunting or working in the lab," there's a Peruvian beetle
now known as Genisphindus roxannae.
"I think she was honored, even though it wasn't an exceptionally flashy
or colorful beetle," McHugh said. "It was elegant and beautiful in
its own way."
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UGA
entomologist Joe McHugh and his research team are working to identify undescribed
beetle species.
