ASU entomologists study Africa’s biological diversity

In October 2015, ASU entomologists-taxonomists published two articles listed in Web of Science concerning the description of new African species of lepidopterous insects. Doctor of Biology R.V. Yakovlev described a new insect species from Zambia according to the materials collected by the German colleagues, and Candidate of Biology P.Ya. Ustyuzhanin presented new data on lepidopterans of South African Republic, Namibia and Swaziland.

• Roman V. Yakovlev, Thomas J. Witt. 2015. Meharia ganslmeieri sp. nov. – a new Cossidae species from Zambia (Lepidoptera) // Zootaxa 4032 (3): 319–321.
• Vasily Kovtunovich, Petr Ustjuzhanin. 2015. New species of plume moths of the genus Agdistis Hübner, 1825 (Lepidoptera: Pterophoridae: Agdistinae) from southern Africa. 7 // Zootaxa 4033 (4): 555–566.

“Currently, we are working hard on the research on biodiversity of the Old World including tropical regions of Asia and Africa, based on the study of the materials from world’s largest museums and our own expeditions to different corners of the world. At the present moment, most of the world’s museums cooperate with us in order to have properly specified material in their collections. That will be the purpose of my November trip to Munich, Paris and Brussels where the work will be focused on study of phylogenesis of primitive groups of lepidopterans of south-east Asia, Africa and Madagascar. Furthermore, I was invited to visit one of the oldest European universities, Jagiellonian University in Krakow; but I will not have enough time for it in November, so the visit will most probably be postponed till March or April,” says Roman Yakovlev.

The Jagiellonian University scientists are now conducting the complex research of Mount Cameroon biodiversity. Both ASU specialists, P.Ya. Ustyuzhanin and R.V. Yakovlev, have already received invitations to process the materials from Cameroon, where, without a doubt, the sensational findings will be discovered.