- Neotropica Pachybrachina

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The aim of the project

The aim of the medium-long term project is to carry out a complete taxonomic revision of the seven genera currently recognized in Central and South American Chrysomelidae, subtribe Pachybrachina. In this first step we have been collecting and publishing on line the photos of primary types or remarkable specimens of all the species described so far.

Thanks to the courtesy of Johannes Frisch and Joachim Willers (Museum für Naturkunde, Humboldt-Universität, Berlin), Karla Schneider (Zoological Institute University, Halle-Wittenberg), Michael Geiser and Max Barclay (The Natural History Museum, London), Harald Schillhammer and Manfred Jäch (Natural History Museum, Wien),
and the opportunity offered by SYNTHESYS Project funding (DE-TAF-1869; DE-TAF-1939, DE-TAF-4995, GB-TAF-3383, AT-TAF-4994), we have got the privilege of visiting the historical collections which house the type series of more the 85% of the species described by the ancient authors. As a result of these visits we have published and periodically update this website.

In the last two years, other important Institutions have been visited by us, and we are indebted with Maria Tavano and Roberto Poggi (Museo di Storia Naturale "G. Doria, Genova) and Eva Sprecher-Uebersax (Naturhistorisches Museum, Basel). Besides, a Systematics Research Fund (SRF) granted to one of the authors in 2015 allowed him to carry out a visit to the National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian Institution), in Washington, D.C., where Alexander Konstantinov and David Furth allowed the author to gather several new data and pictures. Moreover, Alexey Moseyko (Zoological Museum of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersbourg) sent us interesting high quality photos.

Moreover, in 2017 we got the opportunity to visit the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris where no types of previous described species were found, but a rich and very interesting unidentified miscellanea was picked up and sorted from the general collection of the Museum. In 2018 we enjoied the opportunity to visit briefly the Natural History Museum, Prague and the Hungarian Natural History Museum, Budapest. No name-bearing types are housed in these Institutions, but we had the opportunity to gather a very interesting undetermined miscellanea. Lastly, in Summer 2019 we visited the Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm which also keeps several syntypes and other interesting material has been scheduled.

Besides, several further Museums, Public Insitutions and private owners have already joined the project supplying us with material, mostly unidentified, in addition to the previously cited Institution. The complete list of the contributors is displayed on the page of the acknowledgements.

As a result of this project, we are going to carry out a freely available dataset of high-definition images of all the currently known species of Central and South American Pachybrachina.
 
In the meantime, we are willing to study unidentified material, the availability of which would greatly help the progress of our work. We are so grateful to anyone who wants to collaborate for the success of this complex research in providing material, criticism, corrections, suggestions and biological information about Central and South American Pachybrachina. Please contact us at the following address:
                                    
 

davidesassi14@gmail.com                                                                                                  Home

 
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