Fast Fiction

These newly described and named beetles are Slime-Mold Beetles. The entymologists at Cornell decided to give them peppy names. Names honoring such folks as President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

image copyright cornell university and depicts a closely related, previously discovered slime-mold beetle

“The decision to name three slime-mold beetles after Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, however, didn’t have anything to do with physical features, says Quentin Wheeler, a professor of entomology and of plant biology at Cornell for 24 years until last October, but to pay homage to the U.S. leaders. “We admire these leaders as fellow citizens who have the courage of their convictions and are willing to do the very difficult and unpopular work of living up to principles of freedom and democracy rather than accepting the expedient or popular,” says Wheeler, who named the beetles and wrote the recently published monograph describing the new slime-mold beetle species while a professor at Cornell.”

Intended or not, there are now species of beetles out there bearing these fellows’ names eating the scum of the earth.

Found via Science Blog.