2023-05-10 12:27:06
On 10.05.2023 at 02:27
Modified on 10.05.2023 at 2:29 p.m.
Giving new species names inspired by famous people is not insignificant, and helps to draw public attention to potentially endangered animals.
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A new genus of butterfly, with dark eye-like spots on the bottom of its orange wings, has been named after Sauron, the villain of JRR Tolkien’s fantasy epic, The Lord of the Ringswhich takes the form of a demonic gaze, surveying Middle-earth.
An international team of scientists has identified two new species and named them Sauron triangle et Sauron aurigeraannounced Sunday, May 7 le Natural History Museum de Londres. And there could be others of the same kind still in the wild.
Other animals are named after JRR Tolkien characters
These new butterflies were described in a study published in the journal Systematic Entomology. They were discovered in the Amazon rainforest, west side. According to the main author of this study, Blanca Huertas, curator of butterflies at the London museum, giving a species a name inspired by a known cultural work is an assumed practice, which “helps attract attention” on the discovery in question. “Some of these species are threatened with extinction” she assures. When severe wildfires ravaged parts of Australia between 2019 and 2020, insect species took on the names of several Pokémon in an effort to raise funds dedicated to saving them.
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The population of Sauronnewly discovered in this remote region through DNA sequencing, may also be endangered, like many others, due to habitat loss and the effects of climate change.
As the museum indicates, in addition to the newly named butterflies, a dinosaur, a dung beetle and a frog have also been named after this fictional character. A distant galaxy, NGC 4151has also been dubbed “the eye of Sauron”.
These are just a few of the species names inspired by the fantasy work: a deep sea fish was baptized the troglodyte Gollum, a bat is called Syconycteris hobbitand one crab found on the filming location of the films, in New Zealand, is named after the wizard Gandalf.
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