New beetle species named after cartoon characters Posted on 8 March 2019 Tags:Asterix, beetles, Indonesia, island, Obelix, Star Wars, weevils Alexander Riedel, an entomologist at the Museum of Natural History of Karlsruhe in Germany, recently discovered 103 new species of beetles on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi just East of Borneo. There were initially only 341 of beetle species there until Riedel found the other 103 weevils. With over a hundred Trigonopterus beetles to name of the genus of flightless weevils, Riedel got rather creative and fell back on some classic childhood cartoons and films. He named and described each beetle together with the study co-author, Raden Pramesa Narakusumo, in a journal article published yesterday (7 March 2019). Images from Riedel and Narakusumo, compiled by Gabrielle Jacobs Some of them have seemingly normal names, like Trigonopterus volcanorum, a weevil that is found on active volcanoes, according to Popular Science, and then some with names like T. inhonestus and T. hyprocritus. He even named two after his daughter and wife: T. jasminae and T. prismae, but others were called Trigonopterus asterix (10a, 10b), T. obelix (56a, 56b) and T. idefix – originally the name of Dogmatix from the French comic series Asterix (30a, 30b). Our favourite, however, is Trigonopterus yoda (104a, 104b), a beetle with very little resemblance to the sage, green Star Wars character, nor the other beetles, according to us mere mortals. ‘We should have an idea of what other creatures we share the planet with,’ Riedel told the scientific website. He hopes to check out New Guinea next, which is reportedly teeming with diverse species. Citation: Riedel A, Narakusumo RP (2019) One hundred and three new species of Trigonopterus weevils from Sulawesi. ZooKeys 828: 1-153. doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.828.32200 Related Posts The Lady in the Landy: Carla Geyser 7 February 2023 "We cannot sit back and wait for a miracle to happen; every one of us... read more 88 countries agree on shark fin regulation in historic vote 22 November 2022 Panama was host to CITES in November 2022. For the first time in history, 88... read more The big question after Plett’s fatal shark attack: Why? 27 September 2022 By now, we know that sharks are not the mindless killing machines that horror movies... read more PREV ARTICLE NEXT ARTICLE
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