Ms Natalie Dale-Skey
Curator, Hymenoptera
Division: LS Insects Division
Team: Gavin Broad, Natalie Dale-Skey Specialisms: Chalcidoidea; Evanioidea, Megalyroidea, Stephanoidea and Trigonalyoidea collections; curation; microhymenoptera collecting and mounting
Summary
I am responsible for the Museum Chalcidoidea collection and several other parasitoid Hymenoptera (Evanioidea, Megalyroidea, Stephanoidea and Trigonalyoidea).
My curatorial work is currently mainly focused on Chalcidoidea, a difficult but fascinating superfamily of microhymenoptera (most are under 3mm long, and the group includes the smallest known insect: Dicopomorpha echmepterygis Mockford, 1997, a Mymarid, whose males are only 0.11 mm long). The Museum holds material of more than 12,000 Chalcidoidea species (out of about 22,000 described species), around 5,000 of which are represented by primary types.
Current collection projects include incorporating material of the recently acquired Ribes collection, and cataloguing historically important specimens such as those collected by Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace and Henry Walter Bates.
Qualifications
- MSc, Imperial College London, United Kingdom
Degrees
Fieldwork
Peru
2014 - 2014.
United Kingdom
2013 - 2013.
Morocco
2013 - 2013.
Committees
Secretary, International Society of Hymenopterists, 2016 - on going.
Editorships
Subject editor, Zootaxa, 2020 - on going.
Board member, Journal of Hymenoptera Research, Pensoft, 2016 - on going.
Events
Organisation
Organiser, Hymathon2022, (Symposium), 2022 - 2022.
Organising committee, International Society of Hymenopterists 2020 Virtual Symposia, (Symposium),
Organising committee, Hymathon2021, (Symposium),
Publications
Jensen PB, Dale-Skey NH, Vårdal H (2022) On the identity of three little-known Microterys Thomson species (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae). Entomologist's Monthly Magazine, 158 (4) : 233 - 255. doi: 10.31184/m00138908.1584.4148
CAO H-X, DALE-SKEY N, BURWELL CJ, ZHU C-D (null) Review of the genus Pleurotroppopsis Girault (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae) with interspecific phylogenetic relationships based on morphological characters. Zootaxa, 5190 (4) : 451 - 484. doi: 10.11646/zootaxa.5190.4.1
Tselikh EV, Várkonyi G, Dale-Skey N (null) Review of the genus Plutothrix Förster, 1856 (Hymenoptera, Pteromalidae) with a key to Palaearctic species. Journal of Hymenoptera Research, 93 : 1 - 32. doi: 10.3897/jhr.93.86238
Tselikh EV, Dale-Skey N (2021) Review of the genus Toxeuma Walker, 1833 (Hymenoptera, Pteromalidae) from Russia, with a key to Palaearctic species. Journal of Hymenoptera Research, 84 : 391 - 403. doi: 10.3897/jhr.84.68627
Bird S, Dale-Skey N, Raper C, Salisbury A (2020) First records of two natural enemies of the box tree moth, Cydalima perspectalis (Lepidoptera: Crambidae), in Britain. British Journal of Entomology and Natural History, 33 (1) : 67 - 70.
Dale-Skey N (2016) Updating the British and Irish Chalcidoidea & Mymarommatoidea (Hymenoptera) checklist: use of collection data. Presented at Entomological Collections Network 2016 annual meeting.
Forshage M, Broad GR, Papilloud ND-S, Vårdal H (null) Insect species described by Karl-Johan Hedqvist. Journal of Hymenoptera Research, 51 : 101 - 158. doi: 10.3897/jhr.51.9296
Dale-Skey N, Askew RR, Noyes JS, Livermore L, Broad GR (2016) Checklist of British and Irish Hymenoptera - Chalcidoidea and Mymarommatoidea.. Biodivers Data J, doi: 10.3897/BDJ.4.e8013
Dale-Skey N (2014) The Natural History Museum (BMNH) Chalcidoidea collection. Presented at 8th International Congress of Hymenopterists.
NOTTON DG, Michel E, DALE-SKEY N, Nikolaeva S, Tracey S (2011) Best practice in the use of the scientific names of animals: Support for editors of technical journals. Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature, 68 : 313 - 322.
Dale-Skey N, broad (null) Hymenoptera of the British Isles
Contributed Publications
(null) NHM Hymenoptera section Flickr site
Dale-Skey N, broad (null) Hymenoptera of the British Isles
Courses taught
Postgraduate: Ecosystem Service Providers: Taxonomy and Biology of Parasitoids and Pollinators
, London
11/2014 - 12/2014.
Awards
International Society of Hymenopterists Service Award, 7/5/2021.
Invited and keynote speaker
A pet in every sense of the word, Entomological Collections Network 2019 annual meeting: St Louis, United States, 16/11/2019.
For the love of fairy flies: British Mymaridae and the people who worked on them, 9th Congress of the International Society of Hymenopterists: Matsuyama, Japan, 25/7/2018.
Invited speaker, Inselect - applying computer vision to facilitate rapid record creation and metadata capture, Entomological Collections Network 2016 annual meeting: Orlando, United States, 24/9/2016.
Invited speaker, The Chalcidoidea collection at the Natural History Museum, London – overview and current digitisation projects, 2/9/2016.
Invited speaker, Inselect, selected tools for automated metadata capture from specimen images: 25/6/2016.
Streamlining specimens digitisation through the use of Inselect - a curator's perspective, Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections 31st annual meeting: 23/6/2016.
Digitization at the London Natural History Museum: recent projects involving the Chalcidoidea collection, Entomological Collections Network Annual Meeting: 14/11/2015.