Published a new paper today with prior MS student Angela DiDomenico.  Congrats Angela!  Our work on Sitalcina harvestmen resulted in the discovery of two new species, both from California.  We were honored to name one of the species after Darrell Ubick, a giant among North American harvestman researchers.  Darrell has helped many of my students through the years, and I’m truly thankful for his science, kindness and generosity. 

We also used molecular phylogenetics to clearly show that species from the California deserts are allied with Arizona sky island taxa, rather than with adjacent coastal CA taxa. We hypothesize that this interesting biogeography is related to plate tectonics, and perhaps associated with a Madro-Tertiary Geoflora.  You can find the Zookeys article  here.