No Dissection Necessary

Article | Updated 7 years ago

"Bothriembryon (B.) sophiarum sp. n. A–D holotype WAM S66478 (H = 14.4 mm) E Protoconch and early teleoconch sculpture; scale line 0.5 mm."
"Bothriembryon (B.) sophiarum sp. n. A–D holotype WAM S66478 (H = 14.4 mm) E Protoconch and early teleoconch sculpture; scale line 0.5 mm."
"Whisson CS, Breure ASH (2016) A new species of Bothriembryon..."

Earlier this year, Western Australian Museum Technical Officer (Molluscs) Corey Whisson and fellow scientist Dr Abraham Breure published a research article called "A new species of Bothriuembryon (Mollusca, Gastropoda, Bothriembryontidae) from south-eastern Western Australia" in ZooKeys.

The article proved that dissection is an unnecessary technique when identifying new species, as the scientists used a non-invasive method of scanning called micro-computed tomography (micro-CT). Scanning the anatomy of the potential new species allowed the scientists to confirm that this was definitely the case. 

You can read more about the discovery and micro-CT scanning here.

An image from the published research article

"Bothriembryon (B.) sophiarum sp. n. A–D holotype WAM S66478 (H = 14.4 mm) E Protoconch and early teleoconch sculpture; scale line 0.5 mm."
Image copyright "Whisson CS, Breure ASH (2016) A new species of Bothriembryon (Mollusca, Gastropoda, Bothriembryontidae) from south-eastern Western Australia"

Original source

Whisson CS, Breure ASH (2016) A new species of Bothriembryon (Mollusca, Gastropoda, Bothriembryontidae) from south-eastern Western Australia. ZooKeys 581: 127-140. doi:10.3897/zookeys.581.8044