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RESEARCH/CURATION AT TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
June 2010
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Brett Ratcliffe

Brett Ratcliffe and Ronald Cave traveled to Texas during June 2010 to identify specimens and capture label data from Texas A&M University and the private collections of Jim Wappes and Don Thomas. Our first night was spent at the house of Jim and Becky Wappes in San Antonio, where we experienced great Texas hospitality. Jim is a cerambycid specialist and is part of a team documenting all of the Cerambycidae of Bolivia . . . but he also collects scarabs extensively and has many specimens from our current study area. The afternoon was spent identifying or confirming IDs of dynastines in Jim’s collection and capturing the label data. In the late afternoon, Don Thomas arrived from Weslaco, TX, and he brought with him eight large drawers of dynastines from his collection. Don lived in Tuxtla Gutierrez in Chiapas for several years and has many Mexican specimens in his collection. He is a pentatomid specialist and has strong interest and expertise with scarabs and tenebrionids. The evening was spent, with a break for a traditional Texas BBQ dinner, continuing our work with both Jim’s and Don’s collections.

 

The following morning, Ron, Don, and I departed for Texas A&M University at College Station. Arriving at noon, Associate Curator Ed Riley set us up at work stations and oriented us to the collections. Ed is a chrysomelid specialist, but, succumbing like so many others to that vast attraction to scarab beetles, he also has taxonomic expertise and a large personal collection of scarabs. Ed was kind enough to bring in his collection of dynastines to add to all the others being studied. We spent that afternoon and the next two days working on and identifying collections and capturing a large amount of distributional data for our project on the Dynastinae of Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize. John Oswald, a Neuroptera specialist and Curator of the collections, invited us for a dinner at his acreage in the oak savannah country on the outskirts of College Station. The collegiality and collections assistance from people like Jim Wappes, Don Thomas, and Ed Riley add energy to our efforts and will contribute to an even larger and more detailed biodiversity inventory.

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From the left: Jim Wappes, Brett Ratcliffe, Don Thomas, and Ron Cave (sitting), San Antonio, June 2010. Photo Becky Wappes.
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Brett Ratcliffe studying the Wappes collection in San Antonio, June 2010. Photo Jim Wappes.
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Ron Cave studying the Wappes collection in San Antonio, June 2010. Photo Jim Wappes.
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From the left, Ed Riley, Brett Ratcliffe, and Ron Cave at Texas A&M University, June 2010. Photo Rob Williams.
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Texas A&M University, June 2010. Photo Rob Williams.
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Generated on: 10/JUL/2010
University of Nebraska-Lincoln State Museum - Division of Entomology