Hello!

I am Diana Marcela Bolaños, a marine biologist from Colombia, a beautiful country located on the Caribbean Sea, between Panama and Venezuela. From 1997 to 2001 I did my undergraduate studies at the Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano in Bogotá (3 years) and Santa Marta (2 years). I spent one more year working on my thesis entitled: Taxonomía y anotaciones ecológicas de los gusanos planos marinos de vida libre (Platyhelminthes: Turbellaria: Polycladida) asociados al litoral rocoso del área de Santa Marta, Caribe colombiano. (Taxonomy and ecological notes of the free-living marine flatworms ((Platyhelminthes: Turbellaria: Polycladida) associated with the rocky littoral of Santa Marta, Colombian Caribbean). As a result of this, my passion for polyclads started.

During this time, I also had the opportunity to meet Dr. Marian Litvaitis and Dr. Leslie Newman who, despite the distance, were incredibly helpful with the development of my research. In March 2003, I obtained the diploma of Marine Biology. In the same year, I received a teaching assistantship and was accepted into the Master of Science degree program in Zoology at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, USA. I am currently working on my thesis on the Taxonomy and Muscular System of the Marine Polyclads. In addition, together with the flatworm wrangler team, I have been working on a survey of the Caribbean polyclads.

My publications and posters are:

• BolañosDM, Quiroga SY, Litvaitis MK (2007) Five new species of cotylean flatworms (Platyhelminthes: Polycladida) from the wider Caribbean. Zootaxa 1650: 1-23 (pdf)
• Quiroga SY, BolañosDM, Litvaitis MK (2006) First description of deep-sea polyclad flatworms from the North Pacific: Anocellidus n. gen. profundus n. sp. (Anocellidae, n. fam.) and Oligocladus voightae n. sp. (Euryleptidae). Zootaxa 1317:1-19 (pdf)
• Bolaños DM, Quiroga S, Litvaitis MK. 2006. A new acotylean flatworm, Armatoplana colombiana n. sp. (Platyhelminthes: Polycladida: Stylochoplanidae) from the Caribbean coast of Colombia, South America). Zootaxa 1162: 53-64 (pdf)
• Quiroga S, Bolaños DM, Litvaitis MK. 2004. Polycladidos (Platyhelminthes:”Turbellaria”) del Atlántico Tropical Occidental. Biota Colombiana 5 (2) 159-172 (pdf)
• Quiroga S, Ardila NE, Bolaños DM. 2004. Aphelodoris antillensis Berg, 1897 (Opisthobranchia: Nudibranchia: Halgerdidae), new record from the Colombian Caribbean. Boletín Inv. Mar. Cost. 33: 229-231
• Quiroga S, Bolaños M, Litvaitis MK. 2003. A checklist of polyclad flatworms (Platyhelminthes: Polycladida) from the Caribbean coast of Colombia, South America. Zootaxa 633: 1–12 (pdf)
• Bolaños DM, Quiroga SY, Rawlinson KA, Litvaitis MK. 2007. Polyclad flatworm diversity of the wider Caribbean. Smithsonian Marine Science Network, Washington, DC (poster)
• Bolaños D, Quiroga SY, Ardila NE, Litvaitis MK. 2004. An Initial Survey of the Polyclad Fauna of the Caribbean Coast of Colombia. Annual Meeting of the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology New Orleans, USA (poster)
• Bolaños DM, Quiroga S, Ardila NE. 2003. Polycladidos (Platyhelminthes: Turbellaria) colectados en la región de Santa Marta, Caribe colombiano. Resúmenes XII Seminario Nacional del Mar, Santa Marta. ST- Póster 27, p. 140