E18: New Species— of semi-aquatic mice from Africa, and getting DNA from a mouse captured 100 years ago!

Dr. Tom Giarla is an Assistant Professor of Biology at Siena College in Albany, NY. He talks to me about his paper published in the May issue of the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society in which he and his coauthor describe two new species of semi-aquatic mice from Africa!

We talk about catching semi-aquatic mice, a possibly extinct species from which he collected DNA, how to prepare a mammal specimen for a museum collection, and species named after the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo who was assassinated!

The title of the paper is “Integrative taxonomy and phylogeography of Colomys and Nilopegamys (Rodentia: Murinae), semi-aquatic mice of Africa, with descriptions of two new species.” The paper is currently available here: https://academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/article-abstract/192/1/206/5918308redirectedFrom=fulltext

To learn more about Dr. Tom Giarla, follow him on Twitter (@TomGiarla), or visit his website: https://www.tomgiarla.com