my @species =('HOMSAP','MUSMUS','-CIOINT');

map {
    /^-?(.+)$/;
    $_ = $1;
    unless (exists $refspecies{$_}) { # Species not in list
        die "$_ is not in the species table\n";
    }
} @species;

##</code><code>##

@in = qw{a b c -d -e};
@out = map { s/-//; $_ } @in;

##</code><code>##

@in = qw{a b c -d -e};
map { s/-//; $_ } @out = @in;