Field work, summer of 2012

I have been wanting to post on my field work this summer but hadn’t been getting around to it. So, I thought I’d start by summarizing where I went and why.

For my dissertation, I am primarily working on the evolutionary history of Gymnusa rove beetles. Because these beetles predominantly inhabit high northern latitudes of North America and Eurasia, this summer I focused on collecting the North American species – a good old fashioned road trip.

I broke the trip up into an eastern and western component with a little down time back here in Lawrence Kansas. A quick and dirty Google maps search revealed that this trip to be approximately a whopping  22,500 km (14,000 mi)! Matilda (my car) needs help…

A rough Google maps overview of my summer field work.