Bootylicious fly named after Beyonce

In a decisive demonstration that entomology is still in touch with the kids, a new species of horse fly has been named in honour of American pop diva and former member of Destiny’s Child, Beyoncé.

The fly, Scaptia (Plinthina) beyonceae, was dubbed such by the CSIRO’s Bryan Lessard thanks to its striking golden behind, arguably one of the more bootylicious amongst its horse fly peers.

“It was the unique dense golden hairs on the fly’s abdomen that led me to name this fly in honour of the performer Beyoncé as well as giving me the chance to demonstrate the fun side of taxonomy – the naming of species,” Lessard said.

The rare Scaptia (Plinthina) beyonceae species of horse fly was collected in 1981, the year that Beyoncé was born, from north-east Queensland’s Atherton Tablelands together with two other previously unknown specimens.

New species are named according to guidelines managed by the International Commission of Zoological Nomenclature, and allow for new examples to receive names in honour of people, including pop singers.

There are strict rules for how species names should be based on personal names, which often involve adding one of a range of gender-specific suffixes to the Latinised stem of the name. For example, the name Margaret can become margaretae or margaritae.

Other species have been named after famous individuals, including Hyla stingi, a frog named after Sting, Pachygnatha zappa, a spider named after Frank Zappa and even Leonardo davincii Blezynski, a pyralid moth named after the Italian polymath.

Spiders appear to be a rich vein of novel names, including the genus of Hawaiian spiders, Orsonwelles, including species macbeth, falstaffius and othello.

Then there’s the trio of slime-eating beetles, Agathidium bushi, A. cheneyi, A. Rumsfeldi, named after George W. Bush and his close associates.

Although not all species are named after real people, with two wasps Polemistus chewbacca Menke and Polemistus vaderi Menke drawing their inspiration from Star Wars.

The discovery of the new horse fly species also has implications outside of pub trivia nights, and has doubled the known size of the Scaptia (Plinthina) subgenus and extended the known distribution of Scaptia into the Northern Territory and north-western Australia where they were previously thought not to exist.

“Most Australian Scaptia species have been described, however, these five ‘new’ species of a sub-group (Plinthina) have been housed in Australian collections since the group was last studied in the 1960’s,” said Lessard.

“Although often considered a pest, many species of horse fly are extremely important pollinators of many plants,” he said. “Horse flies act like hummingbirds during the day, drinking nectar from their favourite varieties of grevillea, tea trees and eucalypts.”

The paper describing the species was published in the Australian Journal of Entomology.

Beyoncé was unavailable for comment on the implications of the new species on entomology.