Rudolf Meier

Halloween News: Meet a new vampire fly (Hippoboscidae) 🧛‍♂🪰 1 of 10 species found on citizen-reported bird carcasses in Singapore: Even dead birds can have productive afterlives! See host records, annotated images, pictorial keys & DNA diagnostics here: doi.org/10.1155/jzs/...

Fresh preprint on how to optimize quality of voucher DNA remaining in insect specimen after barcoding; from @rudolf-meier.bsky.social and our lab.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I'm having fun exploring ways to visualise the history of BINs in @boldsystems.bsky.social using #graphviz Below is the history of BOLD:AAH8697 which is a BIN highlighted by @rudolf-meier.bsky.social in doi.org/10.1111/cla..... Columns are time-slices and the coloured boxes are bins.

The top 10 flying insect clades rule the skies—but defy the rules. Weak or inverted latitudinal diversity gradients leave biogeographers puzzled. Entomologists? Mildly amused. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🚫 Farewell to species descriptions with consensus barcodes.
✨ Hello to Diagnostic Molecular Combinations (DMCs) for your taxonomic research
✅ State-specific
✅ Contrastive
✅ Publication-ready
Now even easier with the latest UITOTO, our updated user-friendly software; Preprint: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

BOLD has data for ca. 1 million animal BINs although there are probably >20 million animal species. Sampling them will make "BIN bouncing" even more common, because the barcode gaps between species/BINs will get smaller and smaller. Thus the need for integrative taxonomy to resolve species limits.

UITOTO for taxonomy. Get your molecular diagnoses right without coding or breaking a sweat! Use state-specific, contrastive DMCs instead of fuzzy consensus barcodes!
🪰🦋🪱🦎🦀🐌🦉
doi.org/10.1101/2025...

DIY. Details inside.

🚨 EntoSieve is now published in Molecular Ecology Resources: Fast and accurate size-sorting of bulk insect samples! Perfect for boosting DNA megabarcoding & metabarcoding projects. 🧬🔬 DIY low-cost device, gentle on specimens and yet efficient 🦋🐞 here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Species- versus specimen-level congruence between DNA barcodes and morphology. Species-level dominates papers but specimen-level matters more for sample evaluation. Read more in "Illuminating Entomological Dark Matter with DNA Barcodes..." in Ann Rev Ent: www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

Dark Taxonomy: From unknown to ready for biomonitoring in 5 steps. By describing 120 species, most species of fungus gnats routinely caught in Malaise traps in Singapore now have names. Bees, butterflies and birds, make room for your new friends. Read here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Try sponsorship from Elon Musk's SpaceX?

Malaise Trap Polka Dots vs. Biodiversity Smudge: Similar latitudinal data deficiency gradients for DNA barcodes and all data. Read more in "Illuminating Entomological Dark Matter with DNA Barcodes in an Era of Insect Decline, Deep Learning, and Genomics" Ann. Rev. Entomol.: doi.org/10.1146/annu...

"Illuminating Entomological Dark Matter with DNA Barcodes in an Era of Insect Decline, Deep Learning, and Genomics" Who uses insect DNA barcodes for which taxa? The usual suspects dominate... Now in Annual Review of Entomology: doi.org/10.1146/annu...

Fortunately, this is not necessary.

Episode 3 (imaging): Don't just sort. Also image, from multiple perspectives! Insect levitation with ultrasound: capturing 360° views to automate measurements and create 3D models. More here: www.techrxiv.org/users/813834...

YouTube video by Integrative Biodiversity Discovery DIY Photomicroscope

Episode 3 (imaging): Don't just sort. Also image! No money for a robot? Try the Entomoscope! 🦟🔬 DIY microscope for imaging tiny insects in ethanol: 3D-print case, order parts, assemble, image! 📸Perfect for entomologists www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEoZ... ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/104...

DiversityScanner: Robotic discovery of small invertebrates with machine learning methods Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

Episode 3 (imaging): Don't just sort. Also image! Meet “DiversityScanner”, the robot that images, measures, identifies, and moves specimens into microplates; a good companion of “MinION barcodes by everyone, for everyone (see episode 2). tinyurl.com/mwx5k5s7 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

YouTube video by Integrative Biodiversity Discovery How We Barcoded 250 Flies in 6 Hours

More on Episode 2 (sorting triage): 🧬Express barcoding: How to barcode 250 specimens in 6 hrs with equipment that fits on a lab bench. www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fwd... onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

ONTbarcoder 2.0: rapid species discovery and identification with real‐time barcoding facilitated by Oxford Nanopore R10.4 Most arthropod species are undescribed and hidden in specimen-rich samples that are difficult to sort to species using morphological characters. For such samples, sorting to putative species with DNA...

Episode 2 (sorting triage): From bulk samples to putative species without going bankrupt: cheap MinION barcodes obtained with user-friendly software ONTbarcoder. Now also in real-time: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/1 www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFl8...

YouTube video by Integrative Biodiversity Discovery Top 20 most dominant flying insect families

Episode 1 (taxon triage): Identify the biggest knowledge gaps (in insects): Same 20 insect families contribute >50% of species and specimens in Malaise samples; regardless of continent, climate, or habitat. Most are neglected dark taxa. www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUMa... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Center for Integrative Biodiversity Discovery ‪Museum für Naturkunde‬ - ‪‪Cited by 5,039‬‬

Switching from X to Bluesky: Good opportunity to review my 3 years in Berlin at the Center for Integrative Biodiversity Discovery: We fight taxon neglect in biodiversity research through scientific discovery, a giant exercise in triaging given how little we know. scholar.google.com/citations?hl...