Andrew Nisip, a native of Lake Worth, Florida, was a Kirtlandia Summer Intern at CMNH. He worked under the direction of Sydney Brannoch, PhD candidate, and Dr. Gavin Svenson, Curator of Invertebrate Zoology, cataloging praying mantis specimens from the Smithsonian Institution’s collection, and conducted research that contributed to describing two new mantis species. He graduated this year from the University of Florida, Gainesville, with a degree in entomology, studying insect biology, biosystematics and behavior.
Category Archives: Activities at CMNH
New Pub! Mantodea Type Material in USNM Smithsonian Collection
A new publication by Gavin Svenson in ZooKeys details the mantis type specimens in the collection of the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, USA. The USNM collection is currently on loan to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
New Pub! Revision of Liturgusa, 3 New Genera & 19 New Species
A new publication by Gavin Svenson in ZooKeys describes the revision of genus Liturgusa, as well as the identification of three new mantid genera and 19 new species. Svenson is the Curator of Invertebrate Zoology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, which also posted a news release about these discoveries. Dr. Svenson describes this research in this video.
Rwanda 2013
Check out the following videos for information about preparing for, and a student’s perspective on, our trip to Rwanda in May of 2013. You can also see a gallery of images from the trip!
Magazine Feature!
Cleveland Magazine featured Svenson and Mantodea research in a feature on local innovations and research.
See the article
Peru Trip- 2013
Update: The links in the original post below are no longer active. However, you can view two videos on the CMNH YouTube site here and here.
Gavin Svenson, Nate Hardy, and Julio Rivera are departing on a two week collecting trip to the Loreto Province in northern Peru. You can follow this trip at the CMNH website where tracking information and from the field updates will be posted.
Otherwise you can see the tracking updates directly from our GPS link mapping site, which provides location data and location posts throughout the trip.
Wieland visits Svenson at CMNH
Last week, Frank Wieland visited Gavin Svenson at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Throughout the week they worked on the Smithsonian Mantodea collection, getting an overview and looking for hidden treasures. One focus lay on the morphology of flower mantises for the ongoing revision of that group.
Wieland and Svenson in the CMNH insect collection.
The CMNH insect collection.
Mantises may look mean but the giant Devonian fish Dunkleosteus, of which many specimens have been found in Ohio, certainly looked meaner…
Svenson featured in News!
See article in Cleveland, Ohio’s The Plain Dealer, Ohio’s largest newspaper.
Thanks to John Mangels for a fantastically written article covering praying mantis systematics research!
Plain Dealer 15 of July, 2012-
Smithsonian Mantodea to CMNH
National Museum of Natural History collection of Mantodea moves to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History
On the 27th to 29th of June, 2012 the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, collection of Mantodea was packed and moved from the central collection in Washington, D.C. to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in Cleveland, Ohio. An Offsite Collection Enhancement Loan to Dr. Gavin J. Svenson, Curator and Head of Invertebrate Zoology at CMNH, was issued for a duration of at least 10 years to ensure this collection will remain active and accessible to the scientific community. Gavin Svenson has become the curator in charge of this collection and will oversee all specimen loans and image requests. This collection contains approximately 8,000 specimens of pinned and alcohol preserved material as well as approximately 23 type specimens. Over the next 10 years the collection will see active growth and development through the activities of Svenson and collaborators. Visiting the collection at the CMNH is welcomed. Please direct all inquiries to Gavin Svenson regarding this collection or loan of material.
Cabinets in place at CMNH–
Unpacking the drawers and moving them into the cabinets–
Svenson Starts at CMNH
See CMNH press release for more information.
Project Mantodea: 