I'm the Curator of Invertebrate Zoology of the Natural Science Research Laboratory, Museum of Texas Tech University
My research focuses on beetle systematics and taxonomy, mainly on the Neotropical members of the subfamilies Entiminae (Curculionidae) and Acidocerinae (Hydrophilidae).
I'm interested in beetle anatomy, biological collections, and biodiversity informatics.
I manage the Ontology for the Anatomy of the Insect SkeletoMuscular system and the
Coleoptera Anatomy Ontology.
I'm one of the coordinators of the Grupo Coleoptera de Colombia
and co-editor and manager of www.Curculionoidea.org.
I started writing about finds and thoughts on beetle anatomy and taxonomic history during the spring of 2025.
As part of a Topical collection on Entomological Outreach Collections and Community Engagement I co-edited with Víctor Gonzalez from the University of Kansas:
Gonzalez, V. H., Wiggins, K., Bonnell, K., Girón, J.C. (2025). A framework for assessing the effectiveness of outreach drawers in insect collections. Natural History Collections and Museomics 2: 1–12. https://doi.org/10.3897/nhcm.2.153644
Girón, J.C. (2025). Come Bug Me: the first attempt at an outreach event showcasing the Invertebrate Zoology Collection of the Museum of Texas Tech University. Natural History Collections and Museomics, 2: 1–8. https://doi.org/10.3897/nhcm.2.153552
Bermúdez-Higinio MF, Argote-Pabón G, Gamboa J, del Río MG, Girón-Duque JC (2025) New country records of broad-nosed weevils (Coleoptera, Curculionidae, Entiminae) from Colombia. Check List 21(4): 671-685. https://doi.org/10.15560/21.4.671
Díaz-Grisales V, Romero-Nápoles J, González-Hernández H, Girón Duque JC, Bautista-Martínez N, Castañeda-Vildózola Álvaro, Anzaldo S, Lourenção AL (2024) Host plants of the weevil genus Heilipus Germar, 1824 (Coleoptera, Curculionidae, Molytinae, Molytini, Hylobiina). Contributions to Entomology 74(2): 217-234. https://doi.org/10.3897/contrib.entomol.74.e129094
From the efforts of the Grupo Coleoptera de Colombia I participated in four publications so far:
Grupo Coleoptera de Colombia
Interested in learning more?
visit https://sites.google.com/view/coleopcol/inicio
or email us at ColeopCol@gmail.com
Colombian Coleoptera workers with colleagues from other countries have been hard at work scanning through the published literature to compile information about the beetles recorded from the country.
Current taxonomic lists published by members of the group via SiB Colombia and GBIF can be found at https://sites.google.com/view/coleopcol/listados. All lists include references to original descriptions and additional publications citing taxonomic groups, with links to those publications that can be found online.
Publications based on those species lists are posted at https://sites.google.com/view/coleopcol/publicaciones