A New Scale Insect with Lily Deeter

<p>Lily Deeter works on scale insects, tiny creatures that many people aren’t familiar with, or only see as a pest. But once you get to know them, you’ll be hooked. Not only do they have fascinating morphology, physical characteristics that at times can seem otherworldly, but with a little practice you’ll be looking for them everywhere. “I don&#39;t think that the insect is just hanging out where entomologists tend to hang out,” Lily explains; the locations she found her new species include her neighborhood park, a brewery, at an entomology conference, and right outside her office. “You just kind of had to look somewhere just a little bit outside of the box.”</p><p>Lily’s fascination with scale insects is apparent as she shares their amazing biology, including some unexpected genetics, and lots more about these tiny creatures. And of course she introduces us to her new species “<em>Acanthococcus orzo</em>,” named after the pasta. </p><p>Lily Deeter’s paper “A new species of grass-infesting felt scale (Hemiptera: Coccomorpha:</p><p>Eriococcidae), with descriptions of all life stages and a key to the adult female</p><p>Acanthococcus Signoret of Florida, U.S.A.” is in volume 5717 of Zootaxa.</p><p>It can be found here: <a href="https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5717.2.3" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5717.2.3</a></p><p>A transcript of this episode can be found here: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n8eI7II0b6160BZmS16Rlf-2g4pkCwGavnDWQUJpODk/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">Lily Deeter - Transcript</a></p><p> </p><p>New Species: <em>Acanthococcus orzo</em></p><p>Episode image credit: Erin Powell</p><p>Browse ScaleNet: <a href="https://scalenet.info/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://scalenet.info/</a></p><p>Scale insects and gecko conservation: <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26198719" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://www.jstor.org/stable/26198719</a></p><p>Beneficial scale insects: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1079/9781800620643.0001" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://doi.org/10.1079/9781800620643.0001</a></p><p>Be sure to follow New Species on Bluesky (@newspeciespodcast.bsky.social) and Instagram (@NewSpeciesPodcast) and “like” the podcast page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NewSpeciesPodcast).</p><p>Music in this podcast is &quot;No More (Instrumental),&quot; by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)</p><p>If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com</p><p>If you would like to support this podcast and enjoy bonus episodes, please consider doing so at <a href="https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod</a></p><p>If you would like to make a one-time contribution to this podcast, you can do so at <a href="https://buymeacoffee.com/newspeciespod" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://buymeacoffee.com/newspeciespod</a><br></p>