Well it’s been a long time since I have posted a piece on the blog, sorry! So here are some of the things that have been preoccupying my time! Again I have been away on fieldwork (some more successful than others!!), we have had an all change in the department and I have been busy with visitors, projects and general day to day life!!

So firstly we have a new keeper (Dr Andy Polaszek, a hymenopterist!) and soon to take over as head of collections once Howard Mendel retires is Theresa Howard (My line manager!). It is sad in one way as it is the end of an era. Howard secured my first contract with the NHM and encouraged me with my work but I feel that the department is in good hands with Theresa to take us on through difficult times. We have a lot of work to do in a limited amount of time – but I guess that is a common problem.

As to more fun stuff ! I wrote most of this blog whilst sitting in a hotel in Sao   Paulo. We were due to go on fieldwork in Paraguay but that has been postponed and so I am utilising my time well here. It is the first time that I have seen the collection here which is the largest in Brazil. Carlos Lamas (a dipterist who specialises in beeflies) overseas the collection and I had great fun noising around in it. Although the collection is open (not in cabinets) they do not suffer from pests or changes in temperature or humidity and the collection is in very good condition. They do have a lot of work to do though as these pictures show!!!

Some unidentified material! (Figure 1)

We also spent our time sorting out future collaborations and transfer agreements. Both sides are very keen to have a closer relationship. Dalton de Souza Amorim is another ‘fly man’ that I work with in Brazil. We are working on some ‘lost’ types which have been rediscovered in our collection in London. At the NHM we have an impressive new imaging lab in the Darwin centre and I am now beginning to play around with the system. We have a clever piece of software (not unique to the NHM) which allows us to create a picture which is composed of many images overlying each other so creating a greater depth of field. We can do this with specimens that are just 2mm and so enable us to look at the wings and the hairs on the genitalia!! I have been creating images of fungus gnat genitalia (it always gets back to that in the end) as well as helping the IPM (integrated pest management) group take photos of unidentified beetles found in the museum.

Dalton de Souza Amorim in the collection (Figure 2)

I have written the second half of this blog again whilst sitting in a hostel in Sao Paulo but this time on my return from Paraguay and all that is good there. As most people are aware we have had to postpone the major collecting trip into the dry Chaco but hopefully that will still happen. However as several of us were already in the region, on our way, we headed to Asuncion to sort out some things. The people we met were incredibly helpful – most of them are hopefully coming on the trip with us and they will be amazing! A lot of them have spent time sampling around Paraguay and have a very good local knowledge. We spent some time in the Museum  of Natural History, which is the most compact little museum but crammed full of amazing specimens. But they stretch up to the ceiling with the gaps between the collections becoming smaller and smaller!

John Kochalka working his way through the collection! (Figure 3)

It is warren of cabinets that all need looking in! I spent some time photographing all of the drawers of the Diptera collection and specific specimens inside.

An unidentified Tachinid (Figure 4)

A drawer of unsorted material – the little flies in the bottom right corner with the orange labels are the ones caught in the Dry Chaco. (Figure 5)

Hopefully I will be able to pass these on to people to identify the specimens. Luckily they have started colour coding the material from the different biomes in the country. All the specimens that have not been identified and that are from the Dry Chaco have been photographed for identification! We have also agreed to sort out permits to exchange material across the museums to speed up the identification process! There are lots of people in Brazil for example working on groups that are unidentified in the museum! I also spent my time looking at the ‘crazy’ flies that the one of the invertebrate curators John Kochalka kept fishing out for me! There was a crazy thunder storm during the day and several leaks sprung from the ceiling luckily not in the collection though!

We were taken to a camp one night out of the city at a friend’s father’s Estacion! Oh and it was lovely. We went for a walk in the surrounding area – that was great – a mix of botanists and entomologists so the pace was very slow!! We climbed the only hill in the area (Paraguay is very flat) and enjoyed the great views from the top.

This is Juana De Egea, a very good Paraguayan Botanist (Figure 6)

A robber fly just enjoying the sunshine! (Figure 7)

We set up a sheet at night for seeing what moths etc were in the area (there was no collecting just observing!). It was completely invaded by termites to start with which encouraged some of the other local inhabitants to visit us!

Please note the termite that didn’t make it into the mouth! (Figure 8)

But there were many different types of moths, beetles, bugs but sadly no flies!

One of the many species of Moth. (Figure 9)

So all in all a very positive outcome for the time we were there.

And on my return journey - I again spent some time in the Museum of Sao Paulo and we were able to look at all of the photo's that I took whilst in the Museum of Paraguay and we established that there were new species of Diptera just sitting in the collection as well as new records to the country! We are working on now describing the material!!