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Headline: RAW VIDEO: Rare Beetle Is The 6th Millionth Specimen Digitised By The Natural History Museum
Caption: An example of a rarely seen beetle species is the 6 millionth specimen to be digitised by the Natural History Museum. Since 2015, the Natural History Museum has been digitising its collection of 80 million specimens, sharing the records freely on its Data Portal. Marking 10 years of digitisation, the Museum has reached its 6 million milestone, a forest caterpillar hunter beetle rarely found in the UK. The beetle is common across Europe but rarely found in the UK, with the Museum only having eight in the collection, some of which have been located within the stomachs of birds. Digitising this forest caterpillar hunter has allowed Museum scientists an insight into the beetle’s last meal – using a hirox microscope to produce high-resolution photographs, scientists were able to spot scales around its mouth. Further investigation has shown these to be lepidoptera scales, indicating that the beetle’s last meal was a moth. Max Barclay Senior Curator in Charge, Coleoptera says: “Calosoma sycophanta is a rare beetle in the UK that has been previously known to eat caterpillars - the young of adult moths. It's only through digitising the mouth parts of this beetle that we have new scientific evidence that this beetle also eats adult moths, and this specimen did this as its last meal before it died.” Blue whales are the largest specimen to have a digital record on the Data Portal whilst the smallest specimen, a tiny fairyfly wasp (Tinkerbella nana) is the only species in a genus of smallest insects in the world and was identified by Museum Scientist John Noyes in 2013. Helen Hardy, Deputy Head of Digital, Data and Informatics at the Natural History Museum says, “By digitising the Museum’s collection on the Data Portal, we are sharing vital data that shows how our world has changed over time. This is key information that scientists need to safeguard our planet for the future Over the last decade we have seen 40 billion records downloaded from the Portal over 1 million download events and more than 4,500 papers cite our digital collection on topics from climate change to human health to crop security. “This brilliant beetle with the revelation of its last meal is a shining example of how digitisation can unlock greater understanding of our collection.” Digitising the Museum’s entire collection of 80 million specimens is estimated to benefit the UK economically by over £2 billion due to its utility in research. The Museum’s plans to create a collections, research and digitisation centre in Reading will accelerate the digitisation of the 28 million specimens moving. Science Minister Lord Vallance said, “By digitising their wealth of priceless specimens, the team at the Natural History Museum are making this unique trove of information readily available to inform the work of researchers, right across the planet. This is a unique and special resource. The difference that making these data available to research ranging from climate change to biodiversity cannot be overstated. That’s why we are spending £155 million over the coming decade to digitally catalogue the natural science collections held across the UK, backed by public funding.” Natural history specimens and their data are critically important for scientists to understand how populations have changed over time. This is particularly important for the ground beetles who are a known predator of two invasive species of forest caterpillars notable for causing destruction to forests. These forest moths include the oak processionary (Thaumetopoea processionea) and pine processionary (Thaumetopoea pityocampa). They create tent-like nests high in the trees, often in colonies of hundreds, which can remove all leaves from a tree. This can kill a tree, which need leaves to absorb the sunlight to create energy. Digitising the Museum’s coleoptera collection allows scientists to develop a better understanding of the evolutionary history of this important insect group. Being able to share data globally on when this caterpillar and its predator started to spread across the world could be key in more easily identifying invasive species in the future.
Keywords: feature, natural history, photo, video, animals, beetle, blue whale
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