January’s been a good month for Beyoncé: she gave birth to her beautiful bundle, Blue Ivy, and now, an Australian scientist decided to honor her by naming a new “bootylicious” species of horsefly after her.
Bryan Lessard, the 24-year-old scientist who bestowed the horsefly with the scientific name Scaptia beyonceae, dubbed the bug the “all time diva of flies” in a press release.
“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.
Adam Vary tried to divine what Beyoncé’s reaction to the news would be at Entertainment Weekly‘s PopWatch:
As you cradle Blue Ivy in your arms while reading the Google Alert on your Blackberry that a golden-tushed horse fly has taken your name because just having a lustrous behind makes you an “all time diva,” are you flattered? Offended? Nonplussed? Or do you quietly chuckle to yourself, wondering over the strangeness of the world while you stare into your child’s eyes, a child who already has strains of medical marijuana named after her?
(That’s right, this week news also broke than an Antelope Valley medical marijuana collective named a new strain of medical marijuana “Ivy Blue OG Kush,” LA Weekly reported.)
Lessard told the AP Beyoncé had not contacted him to comment on the name, but he hoped “she will take his scientific gesture as a compliment.”
Beyoncé isn’t the only famous Texan to have an insect named after her. In 2005, some Cornell entomologists named a slime-eating beetle, Agathidium bushi, after President after George W. Bush, the Huffington Post’s Sara Nelson pointed out. And two other beetles, A cheneyi and A Rumsfeli, were named for Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.
