Don’t Accidentally Squash Ruth Bader Ginsburg!

As I write this column in early June, it looks as if there’s going to be quite a bit of news about the U.S. Supreme Court in the coming weeks. The court will likely wrap up its term at the end of this month, ruling on a number of pending cases, and President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, is in the news as the result of the debate about his confirmation hearing.

But there’s some Supreme Court buzz that didn’t get picked up much by the consumer media that piqued our interest here at PCT. A new species of praying mantis from Madagascar was just named in honor of Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The new species was named Ilomantis ginsburgae by Cleveland Museum of Natural History/Case Western Reserve University researchers.

According to a press release, the researchers pioneered a new method to identify praying mantises. “They described a new species of leaf-dwelling mantis by establishing a female genitalia character system. Male genitalia characters have historically been a standard in classifying insect species,” the release stated. “The research is the first formal study to use female genital structures to delimit a new species of praying mantis. The new species from Madagascar was named in honor of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, for her relentless fight for gender equality.” 

The research, published in the journal Insect Systematics & Evolution, described Ilomantis ginsburgae as looking similar to other leaf-dwelling praying mantises.

This got me thinking…are there other insects named after celebrities? I knew there was a bug named after Far Side cartoonist Gary Larson. (The Google helped me recall that it’s Strigiphilus garylarsoni, a species of chewing louse found only on owls.) Turns out, there are a lot more!

This spring it was announced that a researcher from Thailand named a South African parasitic wasp after actor Brad Pitt. According to ScienceDaily, Conobregma bradpitti earned its name after Dr. Buntika A. Butcher recalled her “long hours of studying in her laboratory right under the poster of her favorite film actor.”

And an article in The Wall Street Journal reported that this spring, a University of Wyoming entomologist named Scott R. Shaw discovered a new species of wasp that lays its eggs inside a host caterpillar “which causes the host to squirm and bend.”

“That reminded me of belly-dancing,” the newspaper quoted Shaw as saying. As such, he named the insect Aleiodes shakirae, after “Hips Don’t Lie” singer Shakira.

Like me, I hope you enjoy learning about these other creatures who are named after famous (infamous?) people:

• Predatoroonops schwarzeneggeri, a spider named after actor/governor Arnold Schwarzenegger;
• Litarachna lopezae, an aquatic mite from Puerto Rico named after singer/actress Jennifer Lopez;
• Agaporomorphus colberti and Agathidium bushi, beetles named after talk show host Stephen Colbert and former President George W. Bush, respectively; and,
• Vallaris zappai, an extinct gerbil named after musician Frank Zappa.