{"id":321212,"date":"2026-08-14T11:40:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T11:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/321212\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T11:40:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T11:40:14","slug":"new-species-in-new-york-city-heres-what-weve-found-so-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/321212\/","title":{"rendered":"New species in New York City? Here\u2019s what we\u2019ve found so far."},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this summer, Vox set up<\/a> two big bug traps in New York City \u2014 like, literal traps that catch bugs. Our goal was to try to discover a new insect species right in the middle of the city because the bulk of them are still unknown to science.<\/p>\n

We now have some exciting, albeit preliminary, results to share.<\/p>\n

During the month of June \u2014 the only month we\u2019ve analyzed so far \u2014 our traps captured an estimated 12,000 insect specimens, which we sent to a lab at the University of Guelph in Canada for analysis. The lab, known as the Center for Biodiversity Genomics, pulled out specimens across three groups: scuttle flies and two kinds of wasps known as parasitoids, which lay their eggs in other insects. We\u2019re focusing on these groups, because they\u2019re considered \u201cdark taxa<\/a>,\u201d meaning that most species within them are likely still undiscovered.<\/p>\n

That left us with just under 1,000 specimens from June to investigate further.<\/p>\n

From there, the lab extracted a short DNA sequence from each specimen, known as a barcode. Those DNA barcodes are unique identifiers for individual organisms, and scientists use them to sort specimens. When individuals have very similar barcodes, that often means they are the same species.<\/p>\n

Most of the barcodes from our specimens were similar to barcodes of insects that scientists have already collected and sequenced. There\u2019s a slim chance that these are members of undiscovered species.<\/p>\n

But there were striking exceptions: Our wasps and flies yielded more than two dozen barcode groups that appear to be quite different. They are unlike anything that exists in the big genetic database, known as BOLD<\/a>, which is essentially a massive library of biodiversity. That means that they may represent new species.<\/p>\n

And now, following further analysis by taxonomists, we have a strong indication that at least a few of those barcode groups may, indeed, be new species. And this was after just one month of looking!<\/p>\n

Before we know if we have a true discovery to announce, we want to be certain that these species are actually new. That takes hard work, for which we are leaning on Emily Hartop, an entomologist at Norway\u2019s NTNU University Museum, and University of Guelph researchers Ranjith AP and Paul Hebert. They will verify that no one has already described the organisms matching these specimens and then publish a formal description, along with a name, in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. At that point, we\u2019ll be able to say with more certainty that the bugs we caught here in New York City are, in fact, new to science.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the traps remain open, and the freezer in my apartment will continue \u2014 to my husband\u2019s disgust \u2014 filling up with ethanol-soaked bugs.<\/p>\n

You can find more information about Vox\u2019s quest to discover a new species here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Earlier this summer, Vox set up two big bug traps in New York City \u2014 like, literal traps…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3431,3432,9,24,55,54,56],"class_list":["post-321212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-climate","tag-down-to-earth","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}