Rediscovered moth collected by Alfred Russel Wallace helps identify 11 new species
A damaged specimen from the Natural History Museum led scientists to revive the Topiris moth genus through DNA sequencing.
A moth collected by British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace in Sarawak, Borneo, between 1855 and 1856 has helped scientists identify 11 new species, according to The Times of India.
The specimen, which consists of a thorax and a pair of wings, was found in a Natural History Museum collection while scientific associate Mark Sterling and senior curator Dr David Lees were examining small, snow-white moths from Southeast Asia.
Researchers used a new DNA sequencing technique to extract genetic information from a piece of the moth's leg. The results showed the specimen belonged to the same species as recent specimens from Brunei, allowing the researchers to resurrect the genus Topiris.
The study, which was published in the journal ZooKeys, expanded Topiris into a group of 14 species. Eleven of these were newly described, including species named after fictional characters Snow White and Cinderella, and environmental activist Greta Thunberg.
The discovery was made after Sterling and Lees noticed the abbreviation 'SAR' on the specimen's original labels. They linked this to Sarawak and Wallace's expedition accounts in The Malay Archipelago, which described collecting moths near Kuching between December 1855 and January 1856.
The moth had previously been dismissed by moth expert Edward Meyrick in 1927, who suggested it was better neglected due to its condition.