It's a beetle ID parade at workshop

Abstract

World aquatic beetle specialist Prof Olof Bistrom took time out from his one-month visit to the Albany Museum in Grahamstown in November to present a workshop on the identification of aquatic beetles. Prof Bistrom’s work focuses on the aquatic beetle family Dystiscidae. As Volume 10 of the Guides to the Freshwater Invertebrates of Southern Africa had recently been published this also presented an ideal opportunity to test the accuracy and ease of use of such a guide by non-specialist researchers and students of aquatic invertebrates, reports Dr Ferdy de Moor of the Albany Museum. Prof Bistrom and Riaan Stals (scientific editor of this guide) were invited to run the workshop together with Prof Marin Villet from Rhodes University and Dr de Moor. Identification guides generally make use of ‘keys’ or a number of discernable characters to enable users to identify species.

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