Scientists at the Natural History Museum, London, are using Auto-Montage Pro to generate images of male bumblebee genitalia, by which bumblebee species can be accurately identified
Syncroscopy reports that Auto-Montage Pro, its automated system for producing focused images of 3D specimens, is being used at the Natural History Museum in London, UK.
The software is being used as part of a project led by Paul Williams to summarise information on world bumblebees.
Scientists in the Department of Entomology are using Auto-Montage Pro to generate images of male bumblebee genitalia, by which bumblebee species can be accurately identified.
Bees are among the most important pollinators of plants worldwide, and are sensitive to environmental changes, thus providing early warning signs of future problems.
Therefore, it is important to identify them correctly, in order to track changes.
Andrew Polaszek, a research scientist at the Natural History Museum, explained: "We are using male bee genitalia as an identification method because bumblebee colour patterns can be very similar across species and this makes using gross body morphology as a guide, quite difficult.
"As bumblebee genitalia are small but not flat, in the past we have had to use scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to produce accurate images of them.
"However, since installing Auto-Montage Pro we have produced over 400 superb images, which are detailed enough to identify species, without using SEM.
This is a major benefit as it has considerably reduced the time and expense of generating precise images and means we have been able to make a good proportion of the Natural History Museum's Bombus collection available via our website".
Martin Smith, Syncroscopy's divisional manager, commented: "To see Auto-Montage Pro being used to publish such high quality images by a world-renowned institute like the Natural History Museum, is very exciting.
"Their work is a great example of the advances in imaging Auto-Montage Pro can bring to taxonomic studies, and should encourage entomologists everywhere to consider using this exceptional software."
