Sam Heads: ‘Every time I open a museum drawer I find something new’

Sam Heads knows a lot about grasshoppers: he started rearing them as a hobby when he was ten years old. Move forward a few years and he’s now a postgrad entomologist, about to submit his PhD on Orthoptera (grasshoppers and crickets), having read pretty much the entire scientific literature on his subject.

The intriguing thing about entomology is that there are so many species of insects – both living and in the fossil record – that discovering and naming new ones is a regular part of the entomologist’s job. In July this year Sam will be on his way to Durban, South Africa, to present a paper to the International Congress of Entomology on his discovery of a new genus and species of flying grasshoppers among fossils from a German collection.

As a research student at the University of Portsmouth, Sam was sent specimens thought to be stick insects from two German museums, but he knew immediately that it was in fact an ancient species of grasshopper which lived 115 million years ago. Sam explains: “I have spent the last five years researching fossil insects and identifying specimens becomes second nature.” This particular grasshopper belonged to a family called Proscopiidae, which evolved to resemble and move like sticks being blown in the wind, which might explain how it had been misidentified.

I realised immediately that they were the first ever fossils of this family of grasshoppers and just sat staring at them down the microscope for the rest of the day.
Sam Heads

Sam’s confidence that he’d found something completely new also comes down to experience – he’s been here lots of times before. He continues: “I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve identified new species. Every time I open a museum drawer I find something new.” Sam has now identified and named a dozen new species, with others in the pipeline awaiting scientific validation. Their names are impressive-sounding, if not exactly catchy: Baisopardus cryptohymen, Piscindusia complexa, Colossocossus giganticus, Parawonnacottella penneyi… For an entomology student, naming bugs is also a handy way of thanking your tutors: Sam’s new species include Colossocossus loveridgei, a cicada named after his tutor Bob Loveridge, and Eoproscopia martilli, after his university mentor Dr Dave Martill.

Stick mimic: a living descendant of the newly discovered flying grasshopper, Prosarthria Teretriostris

Before you rush out into the garden with a jam jar, you should know that naming a new species is not just about turning your tutor’s name into Latin. Just to recognise a species as new requires a deep knowledge and understanding of the group to which the organism belongs. To achieve formal recognition, the new species must then be named and published according to rules laid down by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. Specimens must be designated as ‘types’ and described in detail in a paper which must be published in a recognised academic journal. In addition, the specimens must also be deposited in a recognised institution such as a national museum or university collection.

So, not exactly straightforward, but with the kind of dedication Sam Heads brings to the task, it’s eminently possible for an individual student researcher to find new inspect species – much easier than discovering a new species of elephant, for example.

Apart from years of patient study, the main qualification, as Sam’s career illustrates, is a passion for the subject. When he’s not gazing down a microscope or travelling the world on field trips, Sam continues to breed insects at home; his wife Tina, another bug enthusiast, has chief responsibility for their collection of katydids, crickets, grasshoppers, stick insects and mantises – two new species, live ones this time, are among those being bred at home.

Sam is now dotting the ‘i’s on his PhD thesis and preparing for his July visit to Durban, where the world’s leading bug hunters will all be gathered. Sam added: “this is the largest event on the entomological calendar and promises to be a great meeting. I have a lot of friends and colleagues who are going along so it will be a nice opportunity to meet up with them as well as a great chance for me to tell the wider entomological community about my PhD research – I will be submitting my thesis just before I leave.”