“The beetle specimens I used in my recently published paper,” said Rachel Smith, a senior majoring in ecology, evolution and organismal biology from Independence, Kan. “My little brown beetles are pretty special. They all look very similar, but each one is equally important to me.”

Smith traveled to Suriname, South America, for a biodiversity discovery expedition, where she surveyed the area and collected specimens. Smith and her advisor, Dr. Andrew Short, examined the specimens for months and discovered 18 new species of aquatic beetle from the genus Chasmogenus.

“There are keys to help identify already described species. It’s like a checklist — you go down the list and if you can’t identify a species, then you do some more digging. If it doesn’t match up to any previous descriptions, you can name it and describe it as a new species.” Earlier this year, Smith published her findings in ZooKeys, where she described and named the species. The beetles are now an important part of the KU Natural History Museum, as some of them are holotypes — the one singular specimen used to describe a species.