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Wikispecies

The free species directory that anyone can edit.

It covers Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, Bacteria, Archaea, Protista and all other forms of life.

So far we have 362,160 articles

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A collaboration between Wikispecies and ZooKeys has been announced. PhytoKeys also joined the collaboration in November 2010. Images of species from ZooKeys and PhytoKeys will be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons and used in Wikispecies.



Distinguished Author

Bocage-JV-Barbosa-du-1823-1.jpg

José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage
  (1823-1907).

A Portuguese zoologist and politician. He was the curator of Zoology at the Museum of Natural History in Lisbon. His work at the Museum consisted in acquiring, describing and coordinating collections, many of which arrived from the Portuguese colonies in Africa, such as Angola, Mozambique, etc. He published more than 200 taxonomic papers on mammals, birds, and fishes. In the 1880s he became the Minister of the Navy and later the Minister for Foreign Affairs for Portugal. The zoology collection at the Lisbon Museum is called the Bocage Museum in his honor. He was responsible for identifying many new species, which he named according to the naturalist who found them.

Species of the week

Five Horned Beetle

Eupatorus gracilicornis

Eupatorus gracilicornis

Some facts on this beetle:

Length: 50-95 mm.

Larva Diet: Rotten wood.

Adult Diet: Nectar, plant sap and fruit.

Range: Southeast Asia.

First described: By the British entomologist Gilbert John Arrow in 1908.


A rhinoceros with five horns? Well, Eupatorus gracilicornis is not quite a rhinoceros but nevertheless it is a fascinating creature. This extravagant beetle is boldly colored with shiny jet-black while the elytra or fore wings are colored yellow or gold. It has four large horns on the pronotum (the foremost thorax segment) and one extra-long cephalic (of the head) horn. The body is covered by a thick exoskeleton and a pair of thick wings lie atop another set of membranous wings underneath, allowing the beetle to fly, although not very efficiently, owing to its large size. The flying season is usually in September, when most of the males usually appear to wait for copulation. Rhinoceros Beetles - the Dynastinae, are a subfamily of the scarab beetle family - Scarabaeidae. They are also known as Hercules beetles, unicorn beetles, or horn beetles. There are over 300 described species of these beetles, best known for their bizarre shapes and large size.

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