This is the first installment of a series of blog posts about how some species of insects were named. There are so many species of insects (estimated by the Smithsonian at just under a million) and the “discoverer” of a new one earns the right to name the species, oftentimes causing the name to have an interesting and unique etymology. Now I know what you’re thinking. Isn’t it confusing using the words entomology and etymology back and forth in rapid succession? Well of course, but that’s where the fun lies!
With all but absolute naming freedom, sometimes it is unclear where a new species’ name is derived from. It can be as transparent as Pinkfloydia harveii (Dimitrov & Hormiga, 2011) (Araneae: Tetragnathidae), which is of course named for the famous psychedelic rock group. Or the names’ etymology can be more difficult to sift true meaning from; for example Metallichneumon neurospastarchus (Wahl & Sime, 2002) (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae). To the uneducated mind, it just looks like another Latin name. This species of wasp is known for the larvae’s manipulation of its host insect, pushing the discoverers to name it neurospastarchus, stemming from the latin words “neuropasta” meaning puppet, and “archos” meaning ruler (Isaak 2015). Now the reference may not be crystal clear yet. We have puppet ruler, which isn’t too far a stretch to puppet master, or “Master of Puppets”, the most popular album by the heavy metal band named Metallica.
We all know Google as a multi-billion dollar conglomerate that dabbles in a smorgasbord of projects. However, it started simply as a search-engine. Google gained so much recognition and widespread popularity that the name was not only synonymous with “search” and “look for” but it was even added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006 as a verb.
The species today is named for its “ability to hunt down obscure prey” (Jozwiak, Rewicz, Pabis 2015). If that doesn’t scream google then you should probably get in touch with the modern world because it’s pretty great. In Madagascar where the ant was discovered in 2005, entomologist Brian L. Fisher named the species Proceratium google (Hymenoptera: Formicidae).
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