Nerdy Science Blog

Blanca Huertas, butterfly curator at Natural History Museum in London had discovered a new species among the three million butterfly specimens.  The museum has nine million specimens of butterflies and moths.  The new specimen has a hairy mouthparts (looks like moustache), which is the same as Splendeuptychia ackeryi (a.k.a. Magdalena valley ringlet) that Blanca and two colleagues discovered at dry Magdalena valleys of Colombia back in 2005.  The entomologists did not realize those are new species back then.  The butterfly specimen was in the museum collection since 1920.  Blanca Huertas said that there are only 20,000 known butterfly species and 40% of them are in South America.

Two other colleagues of Blanca Huertas are Jean François Le Crom and Cristóbal Ríos M.  The new discovery is published in the latest Zootaxa.

(Photo Credit: Copyright NHM)

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