Oriental wonders

A month ago I was visiting Kees Achterberg in Leiden, The Netherlands. I spent there two weeks learning from him and his extraordinary collection of braconid wasps, part of the great museum and institution that is Naturalis Biodiversity Center.

There are many stories I could tell about Kees. He is not only a famous scientist, but also a very kind human being -a person anyone would enjoy to have as company. My visit happened one month before his retirement, after 37 years of work. And his office was a bit... eclectic. But, in spite of the thousand things he had to finish and deal with, Kees was a great host, finding time to answer my countless questions and make me feel welcome at all times.

Kees at his office, one month before retiring...

Perhaps in the future I could write more about this visit, but for now will restrict myself to the braconid collection in Naturalis. The museum takes pride on its large holdings -one of the top five natural history institutions worlwide in terms of collection size. This is certainly the case for Braconidae, with many specimens being collected and/or acquired by Kees and his colleagues over the years. 

I focused on the Microgastrinae section only, but even there could only scratch the surface. After two weeks of work I was able to sort to genera and briefly organize part (some 8,000 specimens) of the collection that covers the Oriental fauna. But I could not finish, and there are several thousands of microgastrines still waiting to be sorted and integrated into the main (=identified) collection. The Microgastrinae holdings are very rich on European fauna, as one would expect. But there are representatives from all major regions of the planet. 

Importance of rearing caterpillars and its parasitoids

A month ago I had the great opportunity and honor of visiting Mark Shaw in Scotland, and Kees van Achterberg in the Netherlands. Today I will be writing about my stay with Mark, and what I learned from his extraordinary collection.

The first thing I realized was how few I know on parasitoid biology, especially compared to what Mark knows. It is a humbling experience to listen to him talking about particular species of wasps attacking particular species of caterpillars -and on determined plants, at different moments of the season/year! Here in North America we are light-years away of that kind of knowledge. By comparison, we know nothing.

Another thing I learned was to not be fooled by the appearances. Mark's collection (photos below) might seem a bit rustic... but make no mistake, you are contemplating one of the greatest resources available about biology and ecology of Lepidoptera-parasitoid wasps.

 

The collection -which in due time will be transferred to proper wooden drawers and deposited in the National Museums of Scotland, in Edinburgh- mostly comprises thousands of specimens collected by Mark during the last 2-3 decades. Decades he spent patiently rearing caterpillars, mostly in the United Kingdom, but also in many places across Europe. There are hundreds of new host records, and valuable ecological information on the wasps species, mostly Braconidae, but also Ichneumonidae and a few other families of Hymenoptera parasitoids.

During my 5-days visit I only had time to study 2 genera of Microgastrinae, and could not even finish with them. Going through the collection I was amazed to see the richness of the data gathered by Mark. And, as a greedy person gathering golden coins from a treasure coffin, I spent my last two days frantically recording data and typing notes in my laptop...