(Wikimedia Commons)
American zoologists have discovered 17 new species of centipedes that live in the forests of the Appalachian mountain system.
One of them, Nannaria swiftae, was named after Taylor Swift.
According to the head of the researcher, he wanted to honor the talent of the performer and thank her for the songs that supported him during his graduate years.
The scientist named another species in honor of his wife.
Zoologists describe hundreds of previously unknown species of insects, spiders and other invertebrates every year.
Most of these discoveries go unnoticed by the general public.
However, scientists have a way to draw attention to their work.
All they have to do is name the new species after a celebrity or popular culture character.
For example, the name of the Australian predatory fly Humorolethalis sergius refers to Deadpool.
A team of zoologists led by Derek A. Hennen at Virginia Tech and State University continued this tradition.
The researchers were studying bipedal centipedes from the genus Nannaria, members of the Xystodesmidae family.
These invertebrates, which live in the eastern United States, are small (their body length reaches 15–38 millimeters) and are usually modestly colored.
Most of the time they hide in the forest floor, so it is not easy to see them.
Previous studies have shown that the genus Nannaria is divided into two clades, which correspond to the minor and wilsoni species groups.
Representatives of the first are distinguished by the simple structure of gonopods - modified sex legs.
They are widely distributed throughout the eastern United States.
The second group, whose range is limited by the Appalachian mountain system, includes species with a more complex structure of gonopods.
At the same time, the systematic relationships within the minor and wilsoni branches have so far remained poorly understood.
Experts admitted that many species of these centipedes have not yet been discovered.
To learn more about the diversity of Nannaria centipedes and the evolutionary relationships between them, Hennen and co-authors collected these invertebrates in nature for several years, and also studied museum specimens previously collected by their colleagues.
The researchers compared the structural features of different individuals, and also carried out genetic analysis.
As a result, they managed to identify 52 new species from the genus Nannaria and thus increase the number of known species of the genus to 78.
Last year, Hennen et al published a paper describing 35 new species from the minor group.
Now descriptions of the 17 remaining species have been published, which are included in the wilsoni group (previously it included only seven species).
The authors named one of them Nannaria swiftae - in honor of the famous American singer Taylor Swift.
(Derek A. Hennen et al. / ZooKeys, 2022)
According to Hennen, he wanted to honor the talent of the performer and thank her for the pleasure he received from her songs.
The scientist often listened to Taylor Swift's songs in graduate school - and they helped him survive the difficult years in graduate school.
Like other members of the genus, N. swiftae is a small centipede.
The body length of males of this species is only 22.4 millimeters. It looks rather modest: the tergites are painted chestnut, and on the sides of each of them there is an orange spot that merges into a border around the entire body.
N. swiftae lives only in Tennessee, where Taylor Swift herself once lived.
Researchers have found these centipedes in forests at altitudes ranging from 481 to 1539 meters.
The authors note that, most likely, many species of the genus Nannaria have yet to be discovered.
However, the diversity of these centipedes is threatened by a number of environmental problems, the most serious of which is the hemlock hermes (Adelges tsugae), an invasive insect native to Japan.
They quickly spread across the Appalachians and destroy coniferous trees from the genus Tsuga.
After the death of the hemlock, the crowns that previously shaded the forest, it becomes much drier in the litter, which can harm the moisture-loving centipedes.
First of all, this concerns narrow-range species from the wilsoni group, which inhabit limited forest areas in the Appalachians. Some of them may disappear without waiting for a scientific description.
Sources:
- ZooKeys: https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/62544/
- NPR: https://www.npr.org/2022/04/20/1093577980/taylor-swift-was-the-inspiration-for-the-name-of-a-new-millipede-species
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