Insect was named after Lady Gaga
Brendan Morris, PhD at the University of Illinois, observed the behavior of about a thousand treehoppers for his research project when he suddenly noticed one female who was different from the others.
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Scientists decided to name the recently discovered insect in honor of Lady Gaga for their "eccentric sense of style," NME reports.
In the scientific publication Zootaxa, he and his co-author, the entomologist Christopher Dietrich, wrote about it "an additional cross m-cu (between the fourth and fifth longitudinal veins) in the front wing, as well as a frontal-clipella form".
Morris decided to call the insect "Kaikaia gaga" so that specialists could understand what kind of species we are talking about.
"If there ever is a Lady Gaga bug, it will definitely be a treehopper bug because of its crazy horns and eccentric sense of style. They don't look like anything you've seen before," he explained.
Now Morris hopes to go to Nicaragua hoping to find another representative of this species in the rainforest where the insects were brought from for his experiment.
A new treehopper species has been named “Kaikaia gaga” after @LadyGaga in an effort to bring more awareness to the insect group:— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) March 10, 2020
“If there is going to be a Lady Gaga bug, it’s going to be a treehopper, because they’ve got these crazy horns, they have this wacky fashion sense.” pic.twitter.com/6M4yJVgd7H
In October 2019, British entomologists named a new species of one of the smallest bugs in honor of the Swedish schoolgirl and eco-activist Greta Thunberg.