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In the early 20th century, the British Colonial Office and the Discovery Committee of the British Government undertook a series of major investigations into the biology of whales in the Southern Hemisphere.

Another close relative of the aphids, Daktulosphaira vitifoliae, has also caused extensive damage as a destructive pest. The grape phylloxeran (D. vitifoliae), originally native to eastern North America, feeds on the roots of Vitis vinifera grapes, stunting the growth of or killing its vines.

The Naturalis Biodiversity Center, a recent BHL Affiliate, is home to one of the largest natural history collections in the world, consisting of over 37 million specimens. Additionally, Naturalis has contributed nearly 200,000 pages to the BHL collection since 2016. Over 900,000 of the museum’s 37+ million specimens are butterflies, some dating back to the 18th century.

‘Queen of the dark, whose tender glories fade In the gay radiance of the noon-tide hours.’ ‘That flower, supreme in loveliness, and pure As the pale Cynthia’s beams, through which unveiled It blooms, as if unwilling to endure The gaze, by which such beauties are assailed.’ These elegant lines are quoted in Curtis’s Botanical Magazine (v. 62, 1835) as part of the description for the Night-blowing (Blooming) Cereus (Selenicereus grandiflorus) and serve as an artful conveyance of the species’ nocturnal blooming. But these lines represent more than just a whimsical representation of plant behavior.

Have you ever been to a museum and wondered about the history of the specimens on display? If you have, then you’d probably be interested in talking to the museum’s collections managers, as their jobs include not only caring for and improving accessibility to the collections, but also serving as a living knowledge repository for information about the history of the collections. Take the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, for example. Amongst the many treasures on display in that museum are five whale skeletons suspended from the roof. Where did those specimens come from?

Since the end of the twentieth century, the genus name Dixiphia has been associated with the white-crowned manakin. A recent investigation, made possible in part thanks to BHL, demonstrated that Dixiphia did not refer to a manakin at all, but was in fact a junior synonym of the white-headed marsh tyrant (genus Arundinicola). The white-crowned manakin was in need of its own, new genus-group name. The manakin mystery was first discovered by researchers Guilherme Renzo Rocha Brito and Guy M. Kirwan. Following the publication of a book on Cotingas and Manakins, Brito and Kirwan received an inquiry from James A.