LINKS
If you're new to the neighborhood (the beetle systematics neighborhood, that is) and interested in staphs & co., these are the places and folks you should probably get to know. Not a comprehensive list, but a good start.


MUSEUMS

FMNH: So far as I can tell, this is the best staph collection in the world, possibly in the universe. Also, I hear they have dinosaurs.
USNM: A semi-social aggregation of chrysomelid people. Plus Terry Erwin, Warren Steiner, and 90,283,421,342,352,359,873,401 tropical beetles. A gorgeous facility.
CUIC: The most spectacular insect collection in Upstate New York.
AMNH: It's not a "hive of cladists," it's a systematics powerhouse. With a very large pile of money.
ANIC: Camiarines aplenty, and some mighty fine coleopterists.
NZAC: Lots of leiodids. I approve.
KSEM: The Snow Museum at Kansas. Astounding neotropical collection, beetles especially. For some reason, their website is frequently inaccessible.

RESEARCHERS
(in no particular order)

Rick Hoebeke: Staph man and collection autocrat at Cornell (his is a benevolent rule, happily.)

Steve Ashe: Staphs, staphs, staphs. Especially the small-to-the-point-of-invisibility types.

Richard AB Leschen: I don't know what the "AB" stands for, either. Rich is an expert on tiny beetles of all sorts, including NZ leiodids and the delightfully iridescent Pallodes, a nitidulid. Unbelievably prolific.

Al Newton &Margaret Thayer: Pretty much the entire body of knowledge of staphylinoid beetles, attractively packaged in two of the nicest people ever. Their Austral Staphylinidae project is one of the better taxonomy resources online.

Lee Herman: Staphs at AMNH. Has the best view of Central Park.

Stewart Peck: Canada's #1 Leiodid Authority, unless there's someone else up there they're not telling us about.

Jan Ruzicka: European staphylinoids, especially leiodids. A very nice guy, and his name is pretty easy to spell once you get used to it. (as opposed to, say, Waclaw Szymczakowski)

Andrew E. Z. Short: Hydrophilids, the Honorary Staphylinoids. Hey, some of 'em have diffraction gratings! Andrew is an international beetle-collecting machine.

Mike Caterino , Mister Berkeley Beetle Systematics 1998, now running a tight ship in Santa Barbara. Technically a histerid man, but a champion leiodid-hunter. Hats off to Mike!

Gene Hall (scroll down), Colorado's ptop ptiliid ptalent. A big name in tiny beetles. See also the ptiliid ToL page.

Chris Carlton:Pselaphines on the bayou. (More or less. The entire state of LA counts as "bayou", right?) ... also runs a tight ship at the remarkably leiodid-rich LSAM. A+!

(if I left somebody out, please feel free to lemme know.)