While some of the weevils were best associated with their localities or characteristic morphology, others received quite curious names.Ī small greenish and forest-dwelling species was aptly named after the Star Wars character Yoda, while a group of three species were named after Asterix, Obelix and Idefix - the main characters in the French comics series The Adventures of Asterix. Therefore, international collaboration is crucial.Ĭoming up with as many as 103 novel names for the newly described species was not a particularly easy task for the researchers either. While substantial evidence points to thousands of undescribed species roaming the forests in the region, there is only one full-time position for a beetle researcher at the only Indonesian Zoological Museum near Jakarta. However, the capacity for this kind of work in Indonesia is very limited. In fact, the modern taxonomic approach of DNA sequencing seems to be the only efficient method to diagnose these beetles. Their superficial resemblance does not help identification either. Unlike the all-time favourite stag beetles or jewel beetles, tiny beetles that measure no more than 2-3 millimeters seem to have been attracting little interest from entomologists. Why have all these beetles remained overlooked for so long? Sulawesi is geologically complex and many areas have never been searched for these small beetles," said Raden Pramesa Narakusumo, curator of beetles at the Museum Zoologicum Bogoriense (MZB), Indonesian Research Center for Biology. "Our survey is not yet complete and possibly we have just scratched the surface. Over the next years, a series of additional fieldwork, carried out in collaboration with the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), managed to successfully complete the picture. Back in 1990, during a survey of the fauna living on rainforest foliage in Central Sulawesi, he encountered the first specimens that would become the subject of the present study. "We had found hundreds of species on the neighboring islands of New Guinea, Borneo and Java - why should Sulawesi with its lush habitats remain an empty space?" asked entomologist and lead author of the study Dr Alexander Riedel, Natural History Museum Karlsruhe (Germany). The beetles are described in the open-access journal ZooKeys. Nevertheless, a recent study conducted by a team of German and Indonesian scientists resulted in the discovery of a total of 103 new to science species, all identified as Trigonopterus. Such is the case for the tiny weevils of the genus Trigonopterus of which only a single species had been known from the island since 1885.
However, small insects inhabiting the tropical forests have remained largely unexplored. The Indonesian island of Sulawesi has been long known for its enigmatic fauna, including the deer-pig (babirusa) and the midget buffalo. idefix, three newly described species from Sulawesi (Indonesia). Image: From left to right: Trigonopterus asterix, T.