Slashdot Mirror
New Beetle Named After Charles Darwin and David Sedaris
sciencehabit writes "On Charles Darwin's 205th birthday, one beetle he found in Argentina is being recognized as a new species. An entomologist discovered the insect, with unusually saw-toothed antennae and a label reading 'C. Darwin', in a collection on loan from the Natural History Museum in London, where it had been misplaced for at least decades. The beetle represented a new species, Darwinilus sedarisi, named after Darwin and the writer David Sedaris, whose audiobooks the scientist listened to while preparing specimens."
I'm ... really sure that Darwin did not listen to David Sedaris' audiobooks while categorizing species. Working out why this is so is left up to the student as an exercise.
And here I was ready to go out and buy what would absolutely be the most awesome car ever created.
Oh well.
It's a beetle which evolves when you are engulfed in flames.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Awesome.
Have gnu, will travel.
Actually, the London specimen of beetle was collected by Charles Darwin himself on his journey with the HMS Beagle. But it was never classified. As far as I know, there are only two known specimen, the one in the London Natural History Museum and the other in a collection in Berlin. It is not known if the beetle still lives in the bay Charles Darwin found him, or if the species has died out since.
But a member of the Fab Four.
You are aware that there is a difference between Darwin collecting a beetle and an entomologist categorizing it in 2014? If you aren't able to work this out for yourself, just read the article linked to in the post. It's not that hard. (Yes, I'm having a sense of humour failure here. Just read the f****ing stuff before making dumb comments.)
Me Talk Beetle Someday.
I know they have special edition models from time to time, but these are kind of odd edition names for New Beetles.
Why not something Germanic like Planck and Goethe editions?
David Sedaris is a writer whom 60% of women on OkCupid claim to read and enjoy.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
This beetle really should have been named for Alfred Russel Wallace, who came up with the concept of natural selection (independent of Darwin) while studying beetles. He collected some 126,000 species in his time.
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
Sorry, that should be "specimens" not "species". It was "only" a few thousand new species.
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
"... only a few thousand new species."
This quote pretty well embodies the general Slashdot gestalt. Only a few unknown forms of life, endemic to environs separated from European biologists by oceans, mountains, jungles and international travel facilitated by wind driven ships without electronic navigation or communication. Wallace also dreamt up a similar explanation for the process of evolutionary adaptation as he imagined it from the body of evidence that he amassed during his work as a naturalist and specimen collector. He did it independently of Darwin, and unfortunately without the formal support of a mentor in Royal Society. Otherwise his reputation might be equal to Darwin's, at least among those who can reconcile their cognitive dissonance between religious and scientific modes of thought.
No big deal... right.
Gee, I wonder if that's why I put the word only in quotes:
Oh, that's right, you intentionally removed them, thereby misquoting me. Then took me to task for failing to recognize how great his accomplishment was in a thread started by myself making the argument that he deserved recognition for his contributions.
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.