Taylor Swift fans are invading STEM and naming new species in her honor
Taylor Swift has officially entered her insect era.The Grammy Award-winning pop star is the namesake of a recently discovered genus of plant-feeding Australian insects.“It felt authentic to me as a lifelong Swiftie to honor Taylor in this way, as well as bring attention to the diversity of insects that have yet to be discovered,” said Sarah Schroeder, a UC Riverside doctoral student in entomology.
Schroeder hopes that attaching the insects to T.Swift will foster both interest and conservation efforts.
Schroeder is the lead author of a paper published in the journal Insect Systematics and Evolution that details 12 new species of insects.Of these newly identified creepy crawlies, one genus has been christened Swiftiephylus, a combination of “Swiftie,” the preferred term for Swift’s fans, and Phylus, the name commonly used for this group of insects.Further, and to the delight of fans, the genus includes four species whose names are directly inspired by TayTay and her discography: Swiftiephylus taylorae, Swiftiephylus amator, Swiftiephylus intrepidus, and Swiftiephylus poetorum.In keeping with taxonomic tradition, the names are Latin and translate to Taylor, lover, fearless, and poets.
More broadly, the insects belong to a family called Miridae, which encompasses more than 11,000 species and includes both plant feeders and predators.As innocuous as the artist herself, Swiftiephylus are not known to bother humans or animals.
Schroeder’s decision to name the insects after Miss Americana is partly aesthetic.“Taylor Swift’s iconic look is her blonde hair and red lips.
These insects are pale yellow with accents of red throughout,” Schroeder said.“In the paper I refer to them as blonde.” The bugs spend the majority of their lives in Australian she-oaks, highly adaptive trees and shrubs that flourish in tropical forests and coastal dunes and can endure extreme heat.
According to Schroeder, many of these bugs spend their entire lives, from h...