
New species of fungus identified via Twitter - dnetesn
https://phys.org/news/2020-05-bizarre-species-twitter.html
======
montenegrohugo
> the new species has now been given its official name, 'troglomyces twitteri'

Academia always seems so mature and serious from outside, nice to know there
can be some lighthearted humor there too :)

As an aside, do you guys know any other Latin animal names that may have an
'untraditional' origin?

~~~
Someone
It’s fairly normal for names of things few people are interested in such as
insects and fungi.

[https://www.gadgette.com/2016/02/29/these-are-the-
silliest-s...](https://www.gadgette.com/2016/02/29/these-are-the-silliest-
scientific-names-for-real-living-things/) mentions, for example, _Pieza pi_
and _Spongiforma squarepantsii_.

Google easily gives you more examples, for example
[https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-worlds-
str...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-worlds-strangest-
scientific-names-14139154/), which explains the rules are not very strict:
_“The name must not be offensive, must be spelled in only the 26 letters of
the Latin alphabet and may be derived from any language. In fact, a name need
not be derived from anything at all; the rules state that an arbitrary
combination of letters is also perfectly acceptable.”_

~~~
throw_away
No length limits, huh? Now, just gotta find a novel bug...

edit: heh, you could code some nematode's dna sequence into its name.

~~~
traverseda
Go through the wikipedia list of illegal numbers, encode them into latin
letters...

------
asimjalis
> The photo shared on Twitter of the millipede Cambala by Derek Hennen. The
> two red circles indicate the presence of the fungus.

I don’t see the two red circles in the picture.

~~~
graphpapa
There are two red circles, but there is nothing identifiable to the untrained
eye contained within them.

~~~
erentz
Right. Can someone explain? One of the circles has a white dot in the middle
that looks like it could be just dust. The other a faint dark dot in the
middle again that looks like maybe just dust or dirt. Nothing really in them
that doesn’t just look exactly like what’s around them.

~~~
gimboland
Hence the phrase "her well-trained eyes" in the article: to her, your last
sentence would be false, because she's spent years (maybe decades) working in
this field.

------
truebosko
> The newly discovered parasitic fungus has now been given its official Latin
> name, Troglomyces twitteri.

It only took me until 35 to realize these official, scientific-sounding names
are part useful, part researchers trolling us.

~~~
swyx
they should have let Twitter name it too in a Twitter poll

~~~
chris_st
Fungy McFungusface.

~~~
Izkata
But that's not where this fungus attaches - something I'm sure the internet
would've picked up on when deciding a name:

> The fungi are in a class of their own because they live on the outside of
> host organisms, and even on specific parts of bodies—in this case, on the
> reproductive organs of millipedes.

~~~
scollet
Boaty McBoatface

------
billfruit
I have a few photographs, (may be most people have too,) of a few plants/fungi
and animals/insects I couldn't identify, even after consulting resources like
Wikipedia. What is the best way to get a species identification from a
photograph.

~~~
azeirah
Not sure what they're called, but there are subreddits for identifying bugs
and plants and stuff

~~~
mkr-hn
Google (or quack) /r/whatisthis and the thing you want to identify. There's a
bunch of subreddits like this.

Here's a big list:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Whatisthis/wiki/links](https://www.reddit.com/r/Whatisthis/wiki/links)

~~~
JoBrad
This is one of my favorite subreddits. I don’t think I’ve ever even posted in
it. It’s like real life Sherlock Holmes sometimes. Quite often people will
post a piece of a car involved in a hit and run, and it will be solved in
minutes. Or someone will post the oddest looking item, and not only will it
get solved, but you’ll learn a bit of background that you never knew.

------
brudgers
_they just found a new type of parasitic fungus via Twitter._

Sometimes, snark is thrust upon us.

------
losthobbies
That’s a xenomorph

~~~
kebman
For a moment there I thought I was alone, but I see you beat me to it xD Hmm
or perhaps it's a little Maker...

------
gumby
I love this story on many levels, but in particular what it says about the
“trained eye”.

------
wiradikusuma
"I hope that it will motivate professional and amateur researchers to share
more data via social media." \-- and soon we'll see trolls photoshopping
images as "new discovery".

------
seesawtron
Next time some scientist shares a picture of an xx discovery to their
colleagues via Email, will the title of this article be "xx dicovered via
Email"?

------
appleflaxen
for the impatient:

yes, it's what it sounds like.

it's a fungus that lives on the reproductive organs of American centipedes.

They noticed it in a tweet, and quickly confirmed it in their museum
collections.

~~~
SllX
You missed the most important part. They named a parasitic genital fungus
after Twitter.

------
tobr
Maybe I’m being too dismissive, but this strikes me as an equivalent of
existing-invention-but-using-a-computer software patents. I just don’t see how
it’s particularly newsworthy or interesting that an image shared on Twitter
was involved in the discovery.

It allowed for a headline that made me click, though.

~~~
wpietri
The word news is literally the plural of new, as in new things. This is an new
species discovered using a new method involving a relatively new
communications medium. And in particular, it involves one of the strengths of
this new medium: letting people share things with others that might be
interested.

A key difference between social media and older media is who gets to say yes
to publication. For this photo to reach this researcher in a previous age,
there would have been several people who had the ability to say no. And
limited space would mean they'd have a strong incentive to say no. But now it
just takes one person to say, "Here's a thing I think is interesting." Every
reader also has their own editorial power; they can share and retweet.

So for me, this is interesting because it's showing how the "given enough
eyeballs, all bugs are shallow" adage applies to literal bugs. That the
chaotic nature of Twitter is not just providing me with things I find
interesting, but leading to actual scientific advance.

------
kinleyd
With hindsight one could say it was only a matter of time.

------
wltprgm
since the article mentioned this, since when can people in the scientific
field simply share their research data without facing any consequences?

edit: sorry my bad, I realized my question was not making sense, I actually
mean they can publish research data if the authority does not approve of it?

~~~
simonh
What sort of consequences do you mean?

~~~
wltprgm
sorry my bad, I realized my question was not making sense, I actually mean
they can publish research data if the authority does not approve of it?

~~~
simonh
I don’t think there is an authority in Denmark that could stop them, or would
even want to. By default in most countries releasing any data is protected
under free speech, unless the data belongs to someone else or is protected in
some other way, such as if it has military value or is personal data covered
by privacy rules.

------
shultays
Pardon me for nitpicking but how fungus on fish is bizzare?

~~~
kps
Well, this particular fish is a millipede, which you've got to admit is
atypical.

------
peey
The title here needs to include "..." in the original article.

For a moment, I thought this would be a satirical article, characterizing some
group as "new species".

~~~
dang
Ok, we've added fungi to the title above.

------
101404
Twitter can be useful. But that takes work. My block list is probably 10 times
longer than my follow list.

------
Myrmornis
I may be wrong but I suspect that there are many undescribed types of fungi
out there and describing a new species isn't that unusual and there is nothing
of interest in the fact that the photo in question was on twitter.

~~~
mkr-hn
They named it _troglomyces twitteri_ because, as far as they know, this is the
first time one has been discovered through Twitter.

