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Museomics

Natural history museums around the world preserve millions of specimens, often from populations or even species that no longer exist or at least are extremely difficult to sample. Accessing the genomic information of these specimens has increasingly become possible in recent years thanks to new technical approaches including those developed in our group. Thanks to its rapid growth, this research is increasingly referred to as a research field in its own right, called “museomics”.

Recent selected publications

  1. Hagemann, J., Nogales, L.V., Hofreiter, M. and Arnold, P. (2024) Four-toed sengi (Petrodromus tetradactylus, Afrotheria, Mammalia) museomics reveals a crucial role of East African forests in macroscelidean diversification. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 201 (3), zlae081. doi: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlae081. Epub 17th July 2024.
  2. Major, T., Renk, P., Reissig, J., Paijmans, J.L.A., Morris, E., Hofreiter, M., Barlow, A., Broadley, D.G. and Wüster, W. (2023) Museum DNA reveals a new, potentially extinct species of rinkhals (Serpentes: Elapidae: Hemachatus) from the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe. PLoS One, 18 (9), e0291432. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0291432.
  3. Roos, C., Miguez, R.P., Sabin, R., Jr, E.E.L., Hofreiter, M., Zinner, D. (2021) Mitogenomes of historical type specimens unravel the taxonomy of sportive lemurs (Lepilemur spp.) in Northwest Madagascar. Zool Res., 42 (4), 428-432. doi: 10.24272/j.issn.2095-8137.2021.157. Epub 10th June 2021.
  4. Hempel, E., Bibi, F., Faith, J.T., Brink, J.S., Kalthoff, D.C., Kamminga, P., Paijmans, J.L.A., Westbury, M.V., Hofreiter, M. and Zachos, F.E. (2021) Identifying the true number of specimens of the extinct blue antelope (Hippotragus leucophaeus). Sci Rep., 11 (1), 2100. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-80142-2. Epub 22nd January 2021.
  5. Lyra, M.L., Lourenço, A.C.C., Pinheiro, P.D.P., Pezzuti, T.L., D, Barlow, A., Hofreiter, M., Pombal, J.P. jr., Haddad, C.F.B. and Faivovich, J. (2020) High-throughput DNA sequencing of museum specimens sheds light on the long-missing species of the Bokermannohyla claresignata group (Anura: Hylidae: Cophomantini). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 190 (4), 1235–1255. doi.org/10.1093/zoolinnean/zlaa033. Epub 17th June 2020.
  6. Rancilhac, L., Bruy, T., Scherz, M.D., Pereira, E.A., Preick, M., Straube, N., Lyra, M.L., Ohler, A., Streicher, J.W., Andreone, F., Crottini, A., Hutter, C.R., Randrianantoandro, J.C., Rakotoarison, A., Glaw, F., Hofreiter, M., Vences, M. (2020) Target-enriched DNA sequencing from historical type material enables a partial revision of the Madagascar giant stream frogs (genus Mantidactylus). Journal of Natural History [Amphibian taxonomy: Early 21st century case studies,] 54 (1-4), 87-118. doi: 10.24272/j.issn.2095-8137.2021.157 Epub 6th May 2020.