Best Malagasy Podcasts (2025)

1
Two New Damselflies with Shantanu Joshi 31:50

5h ago31:50

31:50

Shantanu Joshi is fascinated with creatures of all kinds, but especially damselflies, the small quick fliers of the order Odonata. In this episode he takes us deep into the forests of Northeast India, a place of immense beauty and interfering colonial history. Undersampling and poor specimen quality are a few reasons the diversity of this area is n…

1
A New Astigmatid Mite with Hemen Sendi 24:19

28d ago24:19

24:19

What if I told you that the oldest known biotic association of arthropods is a piece of Lebanese amber from the Cretaceous period? At the same time that flowering plants were diversifying, astigmatid mites were finding a very convenient way to get around: on the backs of termites. Can mites and termites be friends? How does one identify a tiny mite…

1
A New Woolly Devil with Isaac Lichter Marck 46:53

1M ago46:53

46:53

Sunflowers come in all shapes and sizes, and the group has gained a new member. Nicknamed the “woolly devil,” Ovicula biradiata is the product of the amazing bi-national collaboration between taxonomists, conservationists, and community scientists in Big Bend National Park. But it comes at a time when the future of National Parks is uncertain. “I t…

1
Science Communication: Hard Conversations with Ethan Tapper 35:39

4M ago35:39

35:39

Someone who identifies as a nature lover might not be excited to see trees cut down or large machines rolling across the forest floor. Science doesn’t always align with everyone’s expectations, and often scientists have to explain their work to audiences that aren’t interested or who don’t agree. Ethan Tapper has many of these conversations. Ethan …

1
BONUS: Bats! (1999) with Amanda Grunwald 35:30

5M ago35:30

35:30

Amanda and I discuss and review Bats! (1999) Our ratings: Enjoyability: 🦇 🦇 🦇 🦇 Accuracy: 🦇🦇 🦇 🦇 🦇 This episode is the first in a new bonus series where I watch B-list horror movies with scientists and we rate them on accuracy and enjoyability. All episodes are free, for future episodes you will just have to sign up through Patreon at Patreon.com/N…

1
A New Malagasy Spider with Matjaž Gregorič 20:56

5M ago20:56

20:56

On an expedition to Madagascar, Matjaž Gregorič and his research team came upon a damaged termite nest that had a few other invertebrate visitors. When they experimentally damaged the nest again, they found two unexpected things: spiders ballooning in to prey on the termites as they rebuilt, and hopeful ants standing by to steal termites from those…

1
Two New Cave-Dwelling Snails with Rodrigo Salvador 27:09

5M ago27:09

27:09

Rodrigo’s paper “Idiopyrgus Pilsbry, 1911 (Gastropoda, Tomichiidae): a relict genus radiating into subterranean environments” is in November 8th issue of Zoosystematics and Evolution It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.3897/zse.100.136428 A transcript of this episode can be found here: Rodrigo Salvador - Transcript Follow Rodrigo on X/Bluesky:…

1
A New Schizomid with Sean Birk Bek Craig 45:04

6M ago45:04

45:04

What happens when a hymenopterist finds a mysterious arachnid in a Danish hothouse? Sean Birk Bek Craig was exploring the floor of a hothouse, also known as a greenhouse, when he came upon an interesting creature. “I could see that it was an arachnid when I looked up close,” he said, “but immediately just looking at it with my eyes… I was really pe…

1
Two New Pseudoscorpions with Danniella Sherwood 48:20

8M ago48:20

48:20

In this episode, Danniella Sherwood brings us two new pseudoscorpions from Ascension Island, one of the most remote islands in the world. Ascension’s ecological history is full of many twists and turns, and it is home to amazing biodiversity that is in desperate need of conservation. Danni and her team worked together to address this need, producin…

1
A New Polychaete Worm with Chloé, Marcos, and Juan 40:26

9M ago40:26

40:26

This paper started because Chloé Löis Fourreau and Marcos Teixeira were both too sick to dive during a NEON (National Ecological Observatory Network) bioblitz expedition in the Red Sea. Hoping to at least collect something, they swam to the shoreline and began snorkeling in the shallow water. When they began turning over rocks, what felt like a was…

1
A New Gall Wasp with Louis Nastasi 47:08

9M ago47:08

47:08

Louis Nastasi has a deep love of wasps, and a particular fascination with Cynipid wasps, gall wasps that can specialize on just a few plants or even a single species. In this episode he tells us about their diversity and the tangled phylogenies he works on, and answers the question his paper poses; “Cryptic or underworked?” There’s so much we don’t…

1
10 New Staphylinid Beetles with Adam Haberski 29:52

10M ago29:52

29:52

What can tiny, flightless beetles tell us about the history of mountain geography and climate? It turns out, quite a bit! In this episode, Dr. Adam Haberski introduces us to the wild world of Staphylinid beetles, some of the most diverse creatures on the planet. We learn about the joys (and pitfalls) of collecting in the Southern Appalachians, as w…

1
Basics 3: Description with Marc Milne 49:14

11M ago49:14

49:14

In part 3 of Taxonomy Basics, Marc Milne of the University of Indianapolis tells us all about the process of identifying and publishing new species. He has tips and tricks for microscope work, finding online resources, and many other facets of the description process. Marc is a spider taxonomist and ecologist who specializes in several different gr…

1
Basics 2: Curation with Ashleigh Whiffin 49:57

12M ago49:57

49:57

In part 2 of Taxonomy Basics, Ashleigh Whiffin of National Museums Scotland brings us into the entomology collection to learn the fundamentals of curation and preservation, including which pins to use, the importance of collection data, and much more. Ashleigh is responsible for the care and development of a collection of 2.5 million insect specime…

1
Basics 1: Collecting with Evan Waite 46:11

12M ago46:11

46:11

In part 1 of Taxonomy Basics, Evan Waite from Arizona State University teaches us all about collecting entomological specimens. From which traps to use to tips on sharing your collection with others, Evan gives us all of the details with some great stories along the way. Evan is a coleopterist and PhD Candidate at Arizona State University. His work…

1
Three New Red Devil Spiders with Adrià Bellvert and Miquel Arnedo 48:02

12M ago48:02

48:02

“Another spider paper?!” you might ask. “More new spiders, what’s so interesting?” Well in addition to a revised genus and three new species, Adrià Bellvert and Miquel Arnedo’s most recent publication highlights some of the unique challenges taxonomists deal with as they work to untangle species relationships. “I think that the important part [of t…

1
Five New Skinks with Ishan Agarwal 28:35

1y ago28:35

28:35

Skinks are one of the most diverse families of lizards, and Ishan Agarwal studies skinks in India, one of the most biodiverse countries in the world. From the forest to the lab to the museum, Ishan shares his experiences investigating a group of cryptic skinks that had quite a few surprises to share, including biology and behavior. What is it about…

1
Tautonyms and Etymology with Mike Stephan 49:52

1y ago49:52

49:52

Mike Stephan is a lawyer obsessed with scientific etymology, specifically tautonyms, binomial names in which the generic name and species name are exactly the same. Scientific naming conventions and customs have a rich history, and as Mike says, “[taxonomic names] in some perhaps unintended way tell the greater story of human anthropology and histo…

1
A New Snakeworm Gnat with Thalles Pereira 33:17

1y ago33:17

33:17

There are no snakes in Alaska, so what’s that snakelike shape crossing the road? Few people would guess it’s actually thousands of fly larvae moving in a very peculiar pattern that gives the snakeworm gnat their common name. Dr. Thalles Pereira and his coauthors spent lots of time rearing, observing, and sharing their findings with their community …

1
Community Survey and Updates 3:34

1y ago3:34

3:34

This is a short episode to share some thoughts and feedback from this year's New Species community survey, as well as some updates on what is to come for the podcast. Take the community survey here before March 1st: https://forms.gle/ayoZfXzadr2kd3st5 Check out our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/NewSpeciesPod And the Website: www.newspeciespodcas…

1
Five New Millipedes with Henrik Enghoff 32:41

1y ago32:41

32:41

Who wouldn’t want to receive thousands of millipedes in the mail? When Dr. Henrik Enghoff does it’s through his partnership with FoRCE, the Forest Restoration and Climate Experiment, a group researching tropical forest dynamics and their relationship with things like human disturbance and climate change. They collect millipedes through their field …

1
A New Scorpion with Prakrit Jain 28:29

1y ago28:29

28:29

How many nature enthusiasts can relate to this scenario: you’re watching the landscape go by as you drive, and suddenly you see an area that could be favorable habitat for your target species. Stop the car! That’s what Prakrit Jain did, and it helped him and his coauthors describe a new species of Paruroctonus scorpion from the San Joaquin Valley. …

1
A New Iris with John Manning 40:34

1+ y ago40:34

40:34

Southern Africa is home to over 1,200 species of irises, and if that number doesn’t blow you away, hearing Dr. John Manning’s speak about his new species certainly will. In this fascinating episode we are taken on a deep dive into Iridaceae’s stunning pollinator-driven diversity, evolution over millions of years and several continents, and the crit…

1
A Genus and Five New Species of Pseudoscorpions with Catalina Romero-Ortiz 40:03

1+ y ago40:03

40:03

Dr. Catalina Romero-Ortiz has been fascinated by pseudoscorpions for over a decade, and she wants everyone to understand how amazing they are. But beyond inherent scientific value, Catalina wants to share the importance of taxonomy in and out of the lab. She says, “As scientists, all of us are called to- there are some things that don’t work, you k…

1
A New Scorpion with Javier Blasco-Aróstegui 29:58

1+ y ago29:58

29:58

What do glaciers and scorpions have in common? They’re the focus of Javier Blasco-Aróstegui’s paper in which he and his coauthor describe a new species from the foothills of Mount Olympus. It’s an area home to many legends, and also a surprising amount of biodiversity due to its unique topography. When a large-scale change in habitat restricts gene…

1
A New Gecko with Javier Lobon-Rovira 24:30

1+ y ago24:30

24:30

When researchers talk about species disappearing before we can discover them, they’re talking about species like Javier Lobon-Rovira’s new gecko. With a specific and rapidly fragmenting habitat, this species of Paroedura might have left the world as an unknown cryptic species. “My goal in my life,” Javier tells us, “is not to describe new species… …

1
Three New Wolf Spiders with Danni Sherwood 48:46

1+ y ago48:46

48:46

The island of Saint Helena can’t be described without the word special. It’s a small territory in the south Atlantic that is home to some of the most unique biodiversity in the world, including some extremely rare cloud forest spiders. An island full of spiders might not sound exciting for some, but to Danniella Sherwood it’s a dream! Listen in as …

1
Collections Data with Makenzie Mabry 31:44

1+ y ago31:44

31:44

On this podcast we talk a lot about natural history collections. In fact, a spot (or more) of collections work is pretty much required to describe a new species. But what actually counts as a natural history collection? How many are there in the world? And what happens to all of that juicy data waiting in the stacks to be worked on? Dr. Makenzie Ma…

1
Seven New Leaf Insects with Royce Cumming 29:47

1+ y ago29:47

29:47

You’ve got to hand it to leaf insects; their camouflage is so well-refined that studying them is difficult and collecting them is near-impossible. A sub-group of stick insects, members of the family Phylliidae have evolved to leaf like the best of them, even going so far as to uptake leaf pigments to match their colors. In order to study these crea…

1
Five New Kleptoparasitic Spiders with Cláudia Xavier 24:25

1+ y ago24:25

24:25

Mysmenopsis is a tiny spider genus that has been shaped by women; women have collected, identified, and described the majority of members of the genus. In fact, Dr. Nadine Dupérré alone described 25 species, almost half of the genus’ known diversity. So it’s fitting, Cláudia Xavier explains, that her five new species are named after women, includin…

1
Eleven New Starfish with Chris Mah 33:43

1+ y ago33:43

33:43

Grab your parkas, we’re going to Antarctica! Or at least some researchers did in the 1960s, but it took starfish expert Dr. Chris Mah until the past few years to take a look at their samples and find a new genus and eleven new species of starfish. And not just any starfish, starfish from the deep-sea. In a special guest introduction, Dr. Thom Lindl…

1
Tafan'Hay #2 - Hydrogeology 10:41

2y ago10:41

10:41

"Tafan'Hay" is a podcast recorded live with malagasy students and hosting young malagasy scientists from various background. For today's episode, we are discussing with Marcel Ravelojaona, an hydrogeologist who is driven by the desire to bring drinking water to the malagasy people in need. The Tafan'Hay serie is funded by the National Geographic So…

1
A New Millipede with Paul Marek and Cedric Lee 28:20

2y ago28:20

28:20

Cedric Lee was collecting slugs with another diplopodologist James Bailey when they stumbled upon a very odd creature; thin and string-like with lots of fine legs and a long body. “We recognized that it might be something special,” explains Cedric as he shares how they uploaded the image to iNaturalist. Enter Dr. Paul Marek, who saw the pictures an…

1
Wonderful Weevils with Bob Anderson 48:52

2y ago48:52

48:52

“I always say that insect taxonomists will never get really rich but you will see parts of the world where nobody else gets a chance to go to. It’s a great chance to explore the world” This special episode with Dr. Robert Anderson of the Canadian Museum of Nature brings us across the globe and through several decades of research in a fascinating co…

1
A Couple of Coups in Comoros 42:18

2y ago42:18

42:18

Comoros said bon voyage to their French colonisers in 1975. But did they really? This is the tale of Bob Denard, the French mercenary who stepped into the power vacuum on Comoros in the decades after the country's independence.By Sarah Masiyiwa & Line Talla

1
Tafan'Hay #1 - Génie des Procédés 10:09

2y ago10:09

10:09

"Tafan'Hay" is a podcast recorded live with malagasy students and hosting young malagasy scientists from various background. For today's episode, we are discussing with Andry Ramiharisoa, a "soon-to-be" engineer from the Ecole Polytechnique Vontovorona Antananarivo. the Tafan'Hay serie is funded by the National Geographic Society.…

1
Seven New Grasshoppers with JoVonn Hill 40:27

2y ago40:27

40:27

“Here in the South, our grasslands are where most of our, a huge part of our biodiversity are. And most people don't even know that we have natural grasslands in the Southeast…but they were some of the first things to be developed because they were already open. You didn't have to clear them…And so they were lost early on. And all we have now are t…

1
Angolan Civil War, in Three Acts 37:31

2y ago37:31

37:31

It's 1975 and the Portuguese are out of Angola; now what? This story tracks the three decades of Civil War that ravaged Angola; it's participants seeking to answer one question: who's really in charge here?By Sarah Masiyiwa & Line Talla

1
The Last King of the Nile 44:50

2y ago44:50

44:50

By the 1950s, Egypt was torn between nationalists, royalists, communists, the Muslim brotherhood, and an increasingly meddlesome Britain. The moment called for a leader with decisiveness and wisdom. King Farouk I was *not* this leader. This is the story of the last ruling monarch of Egypt.By Sarah Masiyiwa & Line Talla

1
Three New Argyresthia Moths with Jacob Gorneau 37:18

2y ago37:18

37:18

Have you ever seen a series of fine squiggles in a leaf? Those might be leaf-mining moths in the genus Argyresthia. These tiny moths are closely linked with many agricultural crops, but factors including sampling bias and their small size mean we don’t know as much about them as we’d like. Jacob Gorneau and his team examined material from Guatemala…

1
The Malagasy Uprising 46:12

2y ago46:12

46:12

In 1947, nationalists in Madagascar launched surprise attacks on military bases and French-owned plantations. Without missing a beat, the French began to violently counterattack. This is the story of the Malagasy Uprising.By Sarah Masiyiwa & Line Talla

1
What’s in a Spider Name with Stefano Mammola 35:57

2y ago35:57

35:57

When a scientist comes on the podcast, we always ask them how they named their new species. It’s a privilege that comes with a species description, and we’ve seen firsthand how different that answer can be. For some it’s a straightforward geographic name, for others it’s about morphology, and still others name after collectors, celebrities, or love…

1
A New Bat with Amanda Grunwald 32:38

2y ago32:38

32:38

Amanda Grunwald is fascinated by arthropods, by reptiles, pretty much anything that creeps or crawls. But what about the creatures that fly? Here we dive into her work on bats in the genus Pseudoromicia, simple-nosed bats that are relatively less known. She takes us from the mountains of Cameroon to a genetics lab in Chicago, and we discuss what re…

1
Guinea's Gamble 50:15

2y ago50:15

50:15

When Charles de Gaulle became President of France, he offered the nations of Francophone Africa a choice. They could join the “French Community”, where they would receive aid and support, but no sovereignty. Or they could vote for total independence. Every country voted to remain in France… except for Guinea. Here’s what happened next.…

1
Bar Afrique Trailer 0:34

2y ago0:34

0:34

Welcome to Bar Afrique, the podcast where we tell the unexpected and unexplored stories around African decolonization over a drink… or five.By Sarah Masiyiwa & Line Talla

1
Seven New Sea Slugs with Ángel Valdéz 25:02

2y ago25:02

25:02

Dr. Ángel Valdés has known since childhood that he would study sea slugs, and several years ago that dream took him to New Caledonia to work with a large international research team. While divers and other collectors swept the shoreline and beyond for marine life, Ángel diligently photographed every sea slug, including some unexpected finds. Were t…

1
Una Araña Trampilla Nueva con Cristian Pertegal 19:09

2y ago19:09

19:09

Muy a menudo, los científicos que entrevistamos en el podcast hablan inglés como su segundo, tercer o cuarto idioma. Y muchos de los oyentes también son multilingües. Me parece muy importante hacer que estas entrevistas sean accesibles en los idiomas que hablan los científicos, y estoy muy agradecida de que me hayan ayudado a grabar este episodio y…

1
A New Horseshoe Bat with Michael Curran 33:44

2y ago33:44

33:44

Where there is a unique ecosystem to be studied, for example, a patch of tropical evergreen forest 1,000 meters up a mountain, sometimes it’s best to be pushy. Michael Curran had done his master’s research in altitudinal patterns and species richness in rural Mozambique, and when he heard about an expedition back to the area, he wrote to the resear…

1
A New Trapdoor Spider with Cristian Pertegal 21:53

2y ago21:53

21:53

Trapdoor spiders are a relative mystery to arachnologists - they’re a small group that is not well known despite their often bold coloration and their unique burrows. But for Cristian Pertegal they are a passion and a fascination, even if they are occasionally also a literal pain. Listen in as Cristian shares his love for these spiders, their uniqu…

1
A New Beech Tree with Wei Harn 25:07

2y ago25:07

25:07

Did you know that there are still new species of tree to discover? Wei Harn does, and in this episode he tells us all about his trip surveying Malaysian Royal Belum State Park and an unexpected new species discovery. How does one collect a tree, this entomologist host would like to know! (there certainly aren’t any vials big enough). We learn all a…

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Malagasy Podcasts

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Quick Reference Guide