UW Entomologists Discover Mummy-Making Wasps in Ecuador
Source: University of Wyoming News
May 14, 2014 — Jimmy Fallon, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Ellen DeGeneres have more in common than being celebrity talk show hosts. They also have new wasp species named after them as a result of work conducted by University of Wyoming entomologist Scott Shaw.
Field work conducted in the cloud forests of Ecuador by Shaw and colleagues led to the discovery of 24 Aleiodes wasps that mummify caterpillars. The findings, by Shaw and Eduardo Shimbori, Universidade Federal de São Carlos, Brazil, recently were published in the open access journal ZooKeys. Shimbori currently conducts postdoctoral research studies with Shaw at UW.
Among the 24 new insect species described by Shimbori and Shaw, in addition to the talk show hosts, are species named after Ecuadorian artist Eduardo Kingman, American poet Robert Frost, and Colombian singer and musician Shakira.
The Shakira wasp causes its host caterpillar to bend and twist in an unusual way, which reminded the authors of belly dancing, for which the South American performer also is famous. In a previous work, Shaw had named a species after David Letterman.
Read more: http://www.uwyo.edu/uw/news/2014/05/uw-entomologists-discover-mummy-making-wasps-in-ecuador.html
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