Drs. M.E. (Eulàlia) Gassó Miracle

Research interests

Curatorial projects

1. The collection of Cetonid beetles in Naturalis
2. Species database of the Cetoniidae Collection
3. Catalogue of the type specimens of the family Cetoniidae
4. South East Asian Cetonids

Research Projects

1. Life and work of C.J. Temminck (1778-1858): early 19^th century Zoology at the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie, Leiden, The Netherlands

  

Curatorial Projects

The collection of Cetonid beetles in Naturalis

Naturalis houses one of the most impressive Cetonid collections in the world, thanks to the efforts of former curators, amateurs and especially of zealous collectors. One of these passionate collectors was Frans Titus Valck Lucassen (1885-1939), whose collection had a long history before Naturalis finally bought it in 1940. At that time, his collection consisted of more than 40,000 beetles, most of them Cetoniidae.

 

Valck Lucassen, just as his father before him, studied and collected all kind of beetles and eventually specialized in the family Cetoniidae. He described several new species and revised some genera. Along with his research he tried to complete his collection by buying new ones almost every year. Valck Lucassen’s collection included specimens of Oliver Erichson Janson (1850-1926) from London, of Jacob Neervoort van de Poll (1862-1925), of Henry Gérard from Switzerland, Alfred Russell Wallace (1823-1913), René Oberthür (1852-1944) and also of J. Thomson. Valck Lucassen’s collection comprises 1135 types (holo-, para-, and syntypes) of 675 species. These types belong to species described by Fairmaire, Fruhstorfer, Janson, Van Langsberge, Péringuey, Raffray and Westwood, among others.  

 

 

 

Type specimens of Lomaptera described by Valck Lucassen

 

 

The Cetoniidae collection also includes specimens of Gerrit van Roon (1870-1928), whose collection was bought by Naturalis in 1928, ending up in Leiden as well. Additionally, diposited here are specimens received from a great variety of collectors. Some of them were directly linked to Naturalis, while other collections landed here after having changed owners several times.

 

On top of all this, no less than five conservators of the Naturalis collection have worked with Cetonid beetles: S.C. Snellen van Vollenhoven (appointed from 1854 to 1873), C. Ritsema Corneliszn (from 1873 to 1916), C. de Jong (1941-1952), J.T. Wiebes (1952-1970, In Memoriam) and J. Krikken (1970-1990).  

With such an extraordinary past, it is not surprising that the Leiden collection includes so many types and otherwise remarkable specimens.  

 

Updating the systematic arrangement of the Cetoniidae family

About 400 drawers of Cetonid beetles, including a large number of primary types, arranged according to Schenkling’s Coleopterorum Catalogus. That is by now all I can say about the statistics of this collection.

But that is about to change.  

The Cetonid beetle collection was neatly arranged following Schenkling’s Coleopterorum Catalogus (1921-1922; Vol. xxi, pars 72, 75) in the 1970’s by the collection technician, Fred van Assen. In 2006, however, we chose to re-arrange the collection for several reasons, the most important of them being the elaboration of a checklist of the species present in Naturalis. As a result, a project to digitize this collection started in June 2006, and the data started to slowly flow into our electronic database. This created the opportunity of updating the nomenclature used while entering the data.

A good overview of the synonymy is necessary to facilitate the location of any given species in this huge collection and, therefore, a published, well-known revision of this group was necessary. Unfortunately, recent revisions of the Cetoniidae are scarce and scattered and many of the revisions refer to only one or a few genera. The exception to this is the synoptical work of former curator Jan Krikken, a work that provided me with the overview needed. 

Krikken was appointed conservator of the Coleoptera collection in 1970 and has since then worked primarily on Cetoniidae and Geotrupidae beetles and in Forensic Entomology. In 1984, Krikken published his revision of the Cetoniidae based largely on the Naturalis collection (1984, A new key to the suprageneric taxa in the beetle family Cetoniidae, with annotated lists of the known genera. Zool. Verh. Leiden 210: 75 pp.) A new arrangement is currently being made following Krikken’s revision.

Voucher specimens used by Krikken for his 1984 revision of suprageneric taxa

 

Species database of the Cetoniidae Collection

An electronic database will improve dramatically the accessibility of this collection and facilitate the progress of studies and taxonomical revisions. Therefore, I am currently - and painstakingly - elaborating a checklist of the Cetoniidae collection. This list will include all species housed here (following Krikken, 1984), the number of specimens, locality data and, if relevant, the type-status. While entering the data into an electronic database, those specimens deteriorating receive immediate attention. Rusting pins and not-well prepared specimens are the main problems. At the same time, the specimens from the collection of Van Roon and specimens identified by Dr. P. Kuyten (professor at the Leiden University) are being added to the main collection and, of course, registered.

When finished, the checklist and the properly curated, fully accessible Cetonid collection will hopefully serve as an outstanding tool for researchers to work with.

 

Catalogue of the type specimens of the family Cetoniidae

Type specimens of species described by A. Raffray, J.O. Westwood, A. Russel Wallace, I. Pouillaude and J. Krikken, among many other authors, are kept in the Naturalis collection. At this moment, however, we do not know exactly how many types of Cetonid beetles are deposited in Naturalis, although some researchers have already scanned the collection.

J.T. Wiebes (conservator from 1952 to 1970 and Jan Krikken’s predecessor) published in 1968 the fist part of a bigger project that, unfortunately, could not be finished: a catalogue of the Cetoniidae in the Leiden Museum.  Wiebes first section of the catalogue was a checklist of all Goliathus specimens in Naturalis, including type specimens and also those of the Van Roon collection, not yet incorporated in the main Cetonid collection. He revised the synonymy and proposed some nomenclatural changes as well.

A second catalogue, very similar to Wiebes’, was published in 1970 by conservator C. de Jong. His catalogue is a checklist of the Lomaptera specimens in Naturalis and in the Zoological Museum Amsterdam. The taxonomy of this catalogue was based in the monography on Lomaptera written by Valck Lucassen, published posthumously in 1961 [Monographie du genre Lomaptera Gory & Percheron (Coleoptera, Cetonidae). Amsterdam, iv + 299  pp., 731 + 28 figs., 1 map]

Eugène Marais (Namibian National Insect Collection) and Erik Holm (University of Pretoria) listed several types from the Leiden collection in their Type Catalogue and Bibliography of the Cetoniinae of Sub- Saharan Africa [1992, Cimbebasia Memoir 8: 1-125]. Some Asian types are listed in Milan Krajcik’s Cetoniidae of the World [1998, Catalogue-Part 1 and 1999, Catalogue-Part 2, Typos Studio], but this is not a complete listing.

 

	Syntype of Dicranocephalus Bourgoini Pouillaude, 1914

 

The Cetoniidae type material is being described, registered, numbered and photographed, including all the labels. This information, together with scans of the original descriptions of the species, is accessible on the Internet as a virtual type collection (see Preliminary list of types of Goliathini (Coleoptera: Cetoniidae) in the RMNH collection Please note: work in progess!). At the end of the project, an annotated type catalogue will be published.

 

 

South East Asian Cetonids

In order to promote the study of the diversity and classification of South East Asian Cetonids, Merijn Bos and I have created a new webpage on Asiatic Cetonids, hosted in his website on Southeast Asian Beetles. With the collaboration of Alan Mudge, Jean-Philippe Legrand and other specialists we are building a Virtual Museum of South East Asian Cetonids with images and distribution maps of several species of SE Asian cetonids. The website is growing fast as new specimens are added to the collection. By uploading pictures of cetonid specimens that have reliable locality data, diposited in collections, private or otherwise, we can facilitate identifications, promote debate about taxonomy and nomenclature and keep in touch, following each other's interests and progress. The website also provides support for uploading literature references as well as ecological and biological information, all of which can be extremely useful with this particular group of scarabs. Experts can also help by identifying beetles that are already uploaded but need indentification or corrections. Hopefully this will be a platform for those working on Asian cetonids with taxonomic expertise.

 

 

Cetonids are famous not only because of their striking colours and shapes, but also because they are quite difficult to collect. The seasonal changes, the climatic conditions, degree of humidity and the amount of flowering trees at a given time in a given forest are all factors that determine whether or not you may be able to find Cetonids, and which species. Besides the more traditional ways of capturing beetles, like using sweeping nets or light traps at night, special collecting methods must be used if one wants to succeed in catching Cetonids. Placing bait traps up on trees, with fruit - especially banana -  proved to be quite effective during the last Naturalis entomological expedition to Viet Nam (May-June 2007, together with our couterpart, the Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources in Hanoi). These new specimens are a valuable addition to the collection, because Cetonids have not been actively collected in Viet Nam by Naturalis specialists before. Other specimens from that area in Naturalis were collected more than 50 years ago.  Scientific expeditions organised by Naturalis and its counterparts in South East Asia allow us to improve and update the collections by adding newly collected specimens in areas previously poorly explored (see also the Fauna Malesiana Terrestrica project).

In the future, expeditions to proctected and not yet fully researched areas will provide Naturalis and its counterparts with the necessary tools both for taxonomical research as for nature conservation projects.

 

Tam Dao National Park, north of Viet Nam, during the Naturalis Expedition in June 2007

Manh Nguyen and myself proudly holding traps with Cetonids, Tam Dao N.P., June  2007

 

 

Research Projects

C.J. Temminck (1778-1858): early 19^th century Zoology at the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie, Leiden, The Netherlands.

Coenraad Jacob Temminck (1778-1858) was the co-founder and first director of the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie (the National Museum of Natural History Naturalis) in Leiden, The Netherlands. Temminck published several works that gave him an outstanding reputation as a professional naturalist amongst his peers, like his Histoire naturelle générale des pigeons et des gallinacés (1813-1815) and the Manuel d'ornithologie, ou tableau systématique des oiseaux qui se trouvent en Europe: précédé d'une analyse du système général d'ornithologie, et suivi d'une table alphabétique des espèces (1820-1840). But even though he was a renown ornithologist and mammalogist, his work and contibutions to the advance of natural history have never been studied nor put in the context of pre-Darwinian natural history.

During first half of the 19^th century, scientists debated heatedly about very important theoretical and philosophical issues. Those devoted to natural history were confronted with quite thorny questions: Is there a natural system to classify animals? Why are species distributed on earth as they are? Are species fixed or can they change into other species? Where is the fine line that separates species from variations? Pre-Darwinian naturalists were struggling to solve these issues and some of them did it in a very creative manner. This research aims to determine the focus of Temminck's scientific activity at the RMNH and to elucidate which role, if any, did Temminck play in answering all these questions. 

Portrait of C. J. Temminck and plate of Merops amictus Temm. from the Nouveau recueil de planches coloriées d'oiseaux (1820-1839) by C.J. Temminck et Baron M. Laugier de Chartrouse.

Temminck's manuscripts kept in the Leiden museum archives.

This project is being carried out with the support of Naturalis, the History of Astronomy group at the Leiden Observatory (Leiden University) and the Institute for History and Foundations of Science (Utrecht University). Professor R.P.W. Visser supervises the research.