Graduate Student American Museum of Natural History New York, New York
Museums and preserved insect collections are invaluable, untapped resources in the study of parasites and parasitoids. Insect specimens can represent snapshots documenting the mechanisms of parasite infection, parasitism rates over time, and records of host use. Recent advances in the field of museomics, or the study of DNA sequences obtained from museum specimens, enable a novel utilization of museum collections for resolution of key questions in ecological and evolutionary biology. These methods are especially effective in parasitic systems for whom live-capture or lab-rearing study are difficult due to life history, inaccessibility, or extinction. Here we demonstrate the ongoing use of museum specimens in the study of the enigmatic “twisted-wing” parasites, order Strepsiptera. We combine morphological and genomic analyses of preserved hosts and their strepsipteran parasites to address many questions about the order heretofore left unanswered.
