Heidi Hopkins of Species File Group receives grant from Orthopterists’ Society to conduct research on cockroaches in Australia

26 May 2023 - Heidi Hopkins

Researcher Heidi Hopkins, PhD, is a Blattodea specialist, with a particular research focus on the family Corydiidae, many of which are desert cockroaches. Working in both TaxonWorks and Species File software, she curates data for the Species File Group in eight extant orders of insect, one extinct order of insect, and is building a catalog of the Isoptera. Her current research includes the identification of the Blattodea collection at INHS and searching for new species amongst the Arenivaga cockroach populations of Florida.

She recently received a grant of $6500 from The Orthopterists’ Society to spend a month in the natural history museums of Queensland, Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Darwin, Australia. There, she photographed all available Blattodea primary types for TaxonWorks, including this beauty from Western Australia Museum, Perth.

She also searched both the wet and dry collections of these museums for unidentified specimens of Corydiidae, similar to the one pictured here, with the future goal of examining borrowed materials for new species. The Australian Corydiidae have not been revised since 1968. This trip was completed in March, 2023.

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