
CONTENT OF ARTICLES
All articles must have a title and the details of the authors:
Title
The title should be succinct and include the superfamily, family and subfamily in parentheses (e.g. Papilionoidea: Hesperiidae: Pyrginae) for referencing, but not the names of any new taxon.
Authors, names, addresses and ORCID iDs
The full name(s) (e.g. John G. Smith) and addresses of all authors should be listed with their institution(s), where applicable, their email addresses, and their ORCID iDs.
Digital object identifier (DOI)
This will be inserted by the editorial staff.
Responsibility for articles
The factual accuracy of articles and any opinions expressed are the responsibility of the author(s). The Editor of Metamorphosis and the Lepidopterists’ Society of Africa (LepSoc) assume no responsibility for these articles or opinions. The editor in his/ her absolute discretion reserves the right to reject any articles not conforming to the instructions to authors given below, or which do not comply with scientific conventions.
Scope of articles
Articles of any length written in English containing valid scientific data concerning any aspect of the study of African Lepidoptera will be considered for publication. The content of such articles may include but will not be limited to:
- Taxonomic hypotheses, reviews, systematics and descriptions of new taxa.
- Life history descriptions, behavioural studies and ecological research including habitat descriptions.
- Behavioural and ecological hypotheses supported by field and laboratory observations and datasets
- Phylogenetic and evolutionary hypotheses based on molecular analyses and other characters.
- Descriptions of the lepidopteran fauna of specific areas, with checklists, photographs and notes.
- Lepidoptera distribution, atlassing and biogeographical analysis.
- Lepidopteran conservation biology and management including IUCN assessments.
- Reviews of fields of research and methods applied in studying lepidopterology.
Types of articles
Metamorphosis publishes the following types of articles:
- Full Research Articles (no limitation in principle to the length of such articles) will conform to the standard layout and content of scientific articles, and will be peer reviewed, with at least two peer reviewers.
- Review Articles which describe and discuss fields of research and the methods applied in studying lepidopterology.
- Notes which comprise articles of three pages or shorter. Such articles do not have to conform to the layout of full articles and are not necessarily peer reviewed. The Editor will exercise judgement as to what layout and content is most appropriate, and may assist inexperienced authors to achieve a scientifically sound end product. Such Notes do not appear in the printed version of the journal and are separately listed on the website.
- Letters to the Editor in principle do not have to conform to any format, but may not include any profanities, personal attacks or defamatory remarks. The length of such letters may be abridged by the Editor.
- Book Reviews will normally be less than one page, and should be succinct and informative.
FULL RESEARCH ARTICLES
Full research articles (exceeding three pages in length or 1500 words) should be structured in the normal scientific manner: e.g. Introduction, Material(s) and Methods, Results, Discussion, etc. with Acknowledgements and References at the end. In cases where these exact headings are not appropriate (e.g. taxonomic papers and short observations or notes), the paper should be structured in a similar, logical fashion and divided into suitable sections with or without headings.
Abstract
The abstract should be concise (no more than 300 words), without citations or figure references, but complete and intelligible without reference to the text. It should cover the main results of the study, including (in taxonomic papers) all nomenclatorial changes or proposals of new taxa.
Key words
A maximum of 10 key words or phrases are allowed, and should not include words used in the title.
Introduction
This section should include a concise summary of any relevant previous work on the subject matter (unless this follows under a separate heading), and the aims and objectives of the study. An adequate introduction should consist of at least 400 words.
Materials and methods
This section should fully define the materials employed for the research, including a list of specimens or samples examined and equipment employed for the research. The methods used to make observations, measurements and analyses should be described. This section should list all abbreviations, except the standard taxonomic ones and those of measurements (SI units). In experimental as well as purely descriptive work, the deposition of voucher specimens must be stated, as well as the deposition of type material for taxonomic work.
Results
This section should fully describe and present the results of the study, supplemented if necessary by tables, graphs and illustrations (Figures).
Discussion
This section should include interpretation of the results, comparison with the work of others, and hypotheses either verified or falsified by the results.
Acknowledgements
This section should be concise and simple, with the contributions of all non-author colleagues and co-workers recognised and attributed.
Citations
Citations in the text must use the Harvard citation protocol, such as the following examples:
“this aspect was investigated by Wilson (1998a)”
“this aspect was investigated earlier (Wilson, 1988a)”, or (Southwood et al., 1979), or (Thomas & Thomas, 1994).
Literature Cited
Citations must be alphabetically and chronologically listed under this section at the end of the article, and conform to the Harvard citation protocol, as follows:
ATKINS, A.F. 1975. The life history of Anisynta tillyardi Waterhouse and Lyell (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae: Trapezitinae). Australian Entomological Magazine 2: 72-75.
LARSEN, T.B. 1990. The butterflies of Egypt. Apollo Books, Svendborg. 112 pp.
FIGURNY-PUCHALSKA, E., GADEBERG, R.M.E. & BOOMSA, J.J. 2000. Comparison of genetic population structure of the large blue butterflies Maculinea nausithous and M. teleius. Biodiversity Conservation 9: 419-432.
THOMAS, J.A., CLARKE, R.T., ELMES, G.W. & HOCHBERG, M.E. 1998a. Population dynamics in the genus Maculinea (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae), pp. 262- 290. In: Dempster, J.P. & McLean I.F.G. [eds.] Insect populations. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht.
Note: the second line of each citation is indented, and no line is therefore necessary between citations.
FORMATTING AND SPELLING
Text
Your initial manuscript must be submitted as an e-mail attachment to the Editor in MS Word 2013 or later version, 11 point Times New Roman preferred, single-spaced. There is no necessity to format the text or justify the right margin. Use only the regular and italic fonts, with the italic font only for the scientific names of the genus and species. You can use boldface or vary type size for any sections or headers. Put returns only at the end of paragraphs, not at the end of each line. Use one tab to indent each paragraph. At the time of initial submission, all images (colour preferred) should be sent separately in digital form, preferably in intermediate quality JPEG format. File transfer applications such as WeTransfer are preferred for large image files.
Spelling
The standard spelling used in Metamorphosis can be found in The South African Concise Oxford Dictionary 2002, Oxford University Press Southern Africa, Cape Town (ISBN 0 19 571804 6).
Examples of spelling used for commonly used scientific terms:
antemedial ant-nest chevron-shaped
dark brown disco cellular fore legs
forewing greyish-blue greyish-brown
greyish-white ground colour hind legs
hind wing host-ants larval host-plant
light brown mid-brown middle legs
phyto-predacious postdiscal reddish-brown
subbasal submarginal subspecies
subuncus, subunci succulent-stemmed underside
upper side
Abbreviations
sp. nov. species nova
Fig. Figs Figure, figures. Not lower case; no full stop after the plural
[ed.] [eds.] Editor, editors. In square brackets, full stop after the plural
pl. pls. Plate, plates
p. pp. Page, pages
sp. spp. Species, plural of species
ssp. Subspecies
Numerals and units
There must be a non-breaking space between the numeral (value) and the unit, e.g. 1250 m; 5.0 mm; 35 °C. the decimal point in numbers is a dot and not a comma. When a range of values are given the lowest and highest values are separated by an endash, e.g. 14–18 mm. The same applies with figures, dates and so on, e.g. 1956–2001; Figs 1–4. Where there are two possible numerals the “&” sign is used, with spaces either side, e.g. Figs 4 & 5. The equals sign = has a space either side, e.g. n = 71.
Names of taxa
The first mention of any organism should include the full current scientific name of the taxon with unabbreviated name of author(s) and year of description, e.g. Lepidochrysops methymna methymna Trimen, 1862. [If the taxon was originally described in a different genus the author(s) name(s) and year of description must be in parentheses]. Note there is no comma between the taxon and the author’s name, but there is a comma between the author’s name and the date. Thereafter this is shortened to L. methymna with a non-breaking space (Ctrl-Shift-Space) to prevent separation at the end of a line.
Label data
The lines of the label are separated by a semi-colon, and the items on the line by a comma, as per the following example:
Calvinia District, Northern Cape; 31°39.24′ S, 20°53.41′ E, 1254 m; 17 December 2011; J.B. Ball (full initials). Note that there are no spaces between the coordinates, that the degree sign ° is used, with the prime sign ′ (not the apostrophe) for minutes. If the label has seconds the double prime sign ″ is used.
Dates
The preferred format for dates is:
Day (in Arabic numerals).Month (in lower case Roman numerals).Year (in four digit format Arabic numerals unless specifically noted otherwise).
Illustrations
Upon acceptance of an article, high quality images (600dpi) will be requested, and files can be submitted by WeTransfer. Digital images must be TIFF or intermediate quality JPEG files. Should you have further queries on this subject, please contact the Editor. Figures must be numbered in a common sequence in Arabic numerals, irrespective of whether they are line drawings, photographs, diagrams, graphs or maps. Magnifications should be indicated by scale bars on the figures.
References to figures in text and captions should be as Fig. (plural Figs) and Figure respectively. Figure captions should be listed on a separate page at the end of the manuscript. Maps are considered figures and should be so captioned. Do not use plate designations; multiple figures in a single grouping may be individually numbered or subdivided alphabetically (e.g. Figs 1a, 1b, etc.). Line drawings in black and white should include a metric scale. When arranging your figures whether separately or grouped consider that they may appear either as 1 column (width 8 cm) or in 2 columns (16.5 cm). Please do not fail to consider that sometimes high quality photographs in black and white may be superior to the use of colour.
Tables
Present tables in the simplest form possible. Tables must be numbered serially with Arabic numerals independently from illustrations. Tables should be provided at the end of the paper on separate pages and not embedded in the body of the text. The title of a table must fully describe the contents of the table and provide a legend for any abbreviations. When formulating tables, keep in mind that the table can either fill 1 column (width 8 cm) or 2 columns (16.5 cm).
Peer review
All full research articles will be evaluated by at least two reviewers, and for very long and complex articles three or more. After review, the reviewers’ reports and other documents will be returned to the senior (or corresponding) author if necessary for correction. Failure to adequately address the issues raised by the reviewers to the Editor’s satisfaction may result in the article(s) being rejected for publication. In the event of any kind of dispute the Editor’s decision is final.
© 2013 - 2024 | METAMORPHOSIS | Official Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society of Africa | www.lepsocafrica.org
ISSN 1018-6490 (PRINT) ISSN 2307-5031 (ONLINE)
SITE DEVELOPMENT | DESIGN : Skin the Cat Creative Lab