‘I love midges because I know what their hearts look like’: is the passion for taxonomy in danger of dying out? | Taxonomy

OhEver since Art Borkent started talking about biting midges, he rarely stops to catch his breath. Holding up a photo of a gnat trapped in amber from the age of dinosaurs, the 72-year-old taxonomist explains there are more than 6,000 of them ceratopogonidae species known to science. He described and named more than 300 midges, most of them belonging to his favorite family of flies. Some specialize in drawing blood from mammals, reptiles, other insects and even fish, often using CO.₂ of their host’s breath to locate their target, he said. Tens of thousands of them remain a mystery to science, waiting to be discovered.

But as far as Borkent knows, no one will continue their life’s work of identifying and studying this group of flies once they are gone.

Autumn has come to Borkent’s life. He is strong and energetic, tanned from a recent trip to Mexico with his wife. But his white hair gives him away. One day, he will no longer be able to continue the work he has devoted himself to since 1989, working as an independent researcher at the Royal British Columbia Museum and the American Museum of Natural History. His contemporaries have already left: one suffers from advanced dementia, another retired last year.

When Borkent stops working, biting midges risk becoming an “orphan group,” a term taxonomists give to designate a branch of the web of life that is no longer studied. It’s a trend that’s across the board, he says.

“I’m one of the last survivors. It’s a crisis everywhere. As the taxonomic community ages, we’re not being replaced. You can’t get grants. There are almost no positions at universities or museums,” he says. “My science is dying.”

To date, humans have identified more than 2.1 million species on Earth. Even the most optimistic scientists estimate that this figure represents about 20% of all life, with some estimating that we share the planet with a trillion species. Most mammals, reptiles and birds have been identified. But millions of insects, fungi and other organisms are waiting to be discovered. It’s an urgent task: some researchers believe that humans are causing the sixth mass extinction of life on Earth, the largest since the days of the dinosaurs, and that a huge number of species are disappearing before they are even identified.

Insects are by far the most diverse of invertebrates. So far, around 170,000 species of flies have been identified and named. Entomologists wonder if there are 2 or 3 million more left to discover, Borkent says. Each was grouped into one of 157 families, including ceratopogonidae is just one. Half of them are taxonomically orphans, Borkent says.

Despite the enormous lack of knowledge, taxonomists have become as endangered as some of the species they study. Although no reliable figures exist, many areas warn of a crisis in this fundamental science of biodiversity. A 2025 survey of nearly 100 countries found that half had fewer than 10 plant taxonomists. Only 18% of them worked as full-time taxonomists. In Africa, a continent with huge areas of unknown biodiversity, fewer than half of taxonomists had access to computers. The field is also dominated by men: in 41% of countries, all respondents were men.

Although taxonomy underpins several fields – from nature restoration to the illegal wildlife trade – many universities no longer teach it as part of biology courses, researchers say. It also stopped being cool, Borkent acknowledges. Taxonomists have a reputation for being finicky, sometimes arguing for decades over whether an organism deserves to be a distinct species or a subspecies. Their published work almost never makes headlines, making them a poor candidate for research grants.

But, Borkent says, that doesn’t mean the field has to go away. “We are not stamp collectors. We interpret the world around us,” he says.

“There’s something about our relationship with nature that to me is so deeply intimate. I love biting midges because I know what their hearts look like. I know what their guts look like and I know that they can transform from this worm-like thing that squirms and changes shape in four days into this little flying machine that can find you so far away on carbon dioxide. And then go find a mate. And then go find the right, very specialized habitat. It’s amazing.

“We wouldn’t have chocolate without biting midges. They are very important pollinators.”

A The invention of DNA barcoding was a key factor in the decline of taxonomy. In 2003, Canadian scientist Paul Hébert developed a technique that allowed scientists to differentiate between species using a small section of mitochondrial DNA. Hébert used moths collected from his garden to prove his theory. But it quickly became clear that this technique worked on almost all species that use oxygen to survive.

This is the biggest change in the field since Carl Linnaeus developed the modern system used by researchers to classify species in the 18th century. Proponents say it is humanity’s only real chance to get closer to identifying all life on Earth, and it has been quickly adopted.

Borkent is one of many taxonomists who point out the limits of the technology. While it allows you to quickly identify a species if it has already been described, a barcode doesn’t tell you much else. DNA barcodes can detect the presence of an unknown species, but they cannot document how members of a species interact with each other, how they mate, how they behave and their preferred habitat, Borkent explains. This remains the domain of traditional taxonomy.

“Most people who work with genes can’t even identify what they’re looking at. Barcoding is a very powerful, very useful technique. But if we barcoded all the animals in Africa with a barcode, you couldn’t just identify elephants based on a number. They have a long trunk, they walk around and eat things, pull up plants. We need to know something about that. That’s what DNA barcoding doesn’t tell you. don’t give,” he said.

Borkent is not the first to warn of a potential extinction of taxonomists. In 2003, a report by the UK House of Lords Science and Technology Committee found that expertise on many species was disappearing and recommended an initiative to involve young people, as well as a transformation of “white-haired scientists” examining old museum specimens. “The greatest experts on many species are [in Britain]but they’re getting older,” says committee chairwoman Joan Walmsley. Not much has changed, Borkent says.

Every four years, the dwindling group of contemporary taxonomists meets to discuss their work. Borkent calls them the “Fly Workers’ Olympics,” bringing together about 300 people from around the world. At the top of the agenda are the hidden extinctions of the animals they study: the hundreds of species they fear are slipping away, driven by the climate crisis and human destruction, without ever being known to science.

Among the taxonomists present, the fate of their profession came second on the agenda.

“There is a universal complaint. The stories are so bad. Last time I had a colleague who burst into tears over a beer in the evening. They were so stressed. They didn’t have time to do what they wanted to do, what they love,” says Borkent.

“We need this information. It’s part of the beauty and complexity of Earth. Humans know almost nothing.”

Find more Age of Extinction coverage here and follow biodiversity journalists Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield in the Guardian app for more nature coverage.