A teacher named three new species of beetles in Australia in honor of the legendary birds in the Pokémon Articuno, Moltres and Zapdos franchise. According to Eastern New Mexico University, Dr. Darren Pollock and Yun Hsiao collaborated on an article to document the beetle’s discovery and describe the new species for an upcoming third edition of “Australian Beetles”. The pair examined the specimens and decided to officially name them Binburrum articuno, Binburrum zapdos and Binburrum moltres in honor of Pokémon Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres.
A fan of Pokémon and Ph.D., student Yun proposed the idea of giving the beetles the name of the legendary birds because he wanted the nicknames to refer to the rarity of species that have only a few specimens. Admittedly, beetles are not as colorful as their animated namesakes, but they are described as “distinct” because they have a very slight color variation between them.
Image credit: Dr. Darren Pollock / Yun Hsiao.
Much like the legendary Pokémon birds, the trio of beetles can be easily identified from each other. Binburrum articuno (far left) has a silvery brown color on its body and wings, while Binburrum moltres (in the middle) has a very distinct two-tone color with a golden upper half and a black lower half, and Binburrum zapdos (right) ) has black wings with a golden prothorax between the body and the head.
Have you ever watched Pokémon?
Pollock noted the importance of naming a species and choosing a name that has not been used before to differentiate between specimens. He also indicated that more new species of the same genus have been discovered since the article was published and that they may have resorted to their pocket monster Pokédex to give even more names to the insects.
Adele Ankers is a freelance entertainment journalist. You can reach it at Twitter.
