How much do you know about lichens? These incredible taxa are understudied, but today’s guest is making sure they’re not undervalued. “You can’t look at lichens under a microscope and not become immediately obsessed,” says Dr. Erin Manzitto-Tripp. “It’s an endless world of magnificent, beautiful biodiversity.”

Erin works in the mountains of Colorado to describe new species of lichens along with the rest of her fantastic lab. For this paper they called not just on the power of nature, but also on the power of music. These three new species are named after the Indigo Girls, the individual members of the band and the band itself, in thanks for the many gifts Erin and others have received through their music.

Erin Manzitto-Tripp’s paper “The Thin Horizon of a Plan is Almost Clear: Towards a Lichen Biodiversity Inventory of the Southern Rocky Mountains, USA” is in volume 712 issue 3 of Phytotaxa.

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.11646/phytotaxa.712.3.1

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Erin Manzitto-Tripp - Transcript

New Species: Lecanora indigoana, Lepraria saliersiae, Pertusaria rayana

Episode image credit: Erin Manzitto-Tripp

Listen to “The Wood Song,” whose lyrics gave this paper its title: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0tUkepNqiA

Learn about the Lichens of Great Smoky Mountains National Park: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43188704

Check out Erin’s Lab and their work: https://tripp-report.com/

An article about these new species, with some beautiful photos: https://www.cpr.org/2025/07/24/cu-new-lichen-species-named-after-indigo-girls/

And the blog post from the Indigo Girls after hearing about their new species:

https://www.indigogirls.com/blog/bnjasxuusxhyfhyynob5oiko8om81a

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).

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast and enjoy bonus episodes, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

The Cretaceous insects in the family Umenocoleidae have been difficult to classify, but for Soo Bin Lee they are a window into one of the most interesting periods of our prehistoric world. While closely related to the modern cockroaches in order Blattodea, fossil Umenocoleids have been found and researched across the world and found to be present across a larger portion of geologic time than expected. They’re linked to the Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution, an important period of change when angiosperms, or flowering plants, exploded in diversity and prevalence and changed the development of insects as a result.

By examining the tiny and delicate wing venation of fossils, Lee and his coauthors were able to uncover and untangle a new chapter in our knowledge of prehistory. Listen in as Lee draws us into the world of prehistoric creatures, environmental change, and the beauty and complexity of wings.

Soo Bin Lee’s paper “A new Albian genus and species and two other new species of Umenocoleidae (Dictyoptera) from South Korea” is in volume 166 of Cretaceous Research

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cretres.2024.106013

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Soo Bin Lee - Transcript

New Species: Umenocoleus minimus, Pseudoblattapterix weoni, Petropterix koreaensis

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).

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast and enjoy bonus episodes, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod

Do you have a love of holometabolic insects? Ivonne Garzón is the president of their fan club! She studies a subset of geometrid moths that may look drab, but their colorful caterpillars and relationships with toxic plants make them endlessly interesting. “There is no way to get bored,” Ivonne says, “There is no way! You are amazed all the time.”

The story of these moths also includes community; a visit to a caterpillar lab, a collaboration with the local herbarium, and a poll where over 5,000 people chose the name for one of her new species. For Ivonne, taxonomy makes her life joyful and interesting. Make your life more joyful and interesting by listening to Ivonne’s interview as she shares her wealth of knowledge and curiosity with all of us.

Ivonne Garzón’s paper “A new cryptic Phyllodonta Warren (Lepidoptera: Geometridae) from Mexico City with documentation of its life history” is in volume 5666 of Zootaxa.

It can be found here: www.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5666.1.8

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Ivonne Garzón - Transcript

New Species: Phyllodonta coztomatlivora

Episode image credit: Ivonne Garzón

Check out Ivonne’s lab instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/leps.de.mx/

Listen to Rosemary Gillespie’s episode on New Species: https://www.newspeciespodcast.net/release-happy-face-spiders-with-rosemary-gillespie

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).

Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

If you have questions or feedback about this podcast, please e-mail us at NewSpeciesPodcast@gmail.com

If you would like to support this podcast and enjoy bonus episodes, please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod