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New Species Extravaganza! Australian Fly Named After RuPaul

Australia’s national science agency paid tribute to RuPaul by naming a fly after the drag queen, according to a press release dated September 15, while other newly discovered insect names reference Pokemon and Digimon Adventure.

The soldier fly named after RuPaul, Opaluma rupaul, forms part of the new Australian genus Opaluma (from the Latin words for opal and thorn), “to reflect the iridescent colours of flies in this group and the distinctive thorn on the underside of their abdomens,” the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) said.

Three hard-to-find beetles have been named Binburrum articuno, Binburrum zapdos and Binburrum moltres, after three hard-to-find Pokemon: Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres.

A new cycad-boring weevil, Demyrsus digmon, was named after a fictional character in the Japanese anime series Digimon Adventure. Digmon possesses the powering of drilling and manipulating the earth, while the weevil can bore into the hard trunks of cycads.

Dr Bryan Lessard, a postdoctoral research fellow with the National Research Collections, said that eye-catching names could “attract the attention of citizen scientists and policy makers to include these species in bushfire recovery efforts.”

CSIRO said that it and its partners have named 150 new species in the past year. Credit: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation via Storyful