New butterflies named in honor of Saur

 

The Eye of Sauron, as depicted in "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring", the 2001 film adaptation directed by Peter Jackson. Credits: Maximum Film

A team of biologists describes a new genus of butterflies including two species with dark, eye-like spots on their distinctive orange wings. For this reason, these insects were named after Sauron, this powerful evil being who seeks to conquer the world imagined by Tolkien, whose gaze lingers with malevolence on Middle-earth.

In the latest issue of the journal Systematic Entomology, a team of researchers from the Natural History Museum in London describes nine new genera of butterflies. One of them, named Saurona, includes two species new to science: Saurona triangula and Saurona aurigera. Discovered in the southwest Amazon rainforest, these butterflies are part of a group called Euptychiina whose members are difficult to distinguish by simple physical characteristics. The researchers therefore used genetic sequencing to achieve this.

Scientists expect that other still unidentified species will soon join this new genus. Over the past decade, the process of high-throughput sequencing has indeed revolutionized phylogenetic studies by helping to resolve many difficult relationships, including those resulting from rapid bursts of radiation with short internal branches.

A universe that inspires

The practice of naming new species after celebrities or other fictional characters is not new. In general, the aim is to attract public attention for conservation purposes.

Tolkien's characters have already inspired the names of other creatures. Recently, a new species of mammal evolving in the Paleocene epoch, discovered in Wyoming (United States), was for example named in honor of Beorn, a character from the novel The Hobbit. Gandalfus puia, the only known New Zealand crab species in the family Bythograeidae, was also named for Gandalf.

In addition to these newly named butterflies, Sauron also inspired the name of a frog, a dung beetle, and even a dinosaur. Sauroniops, an extinct genus of theropod from the Carcharodontosauridae family, evolved in Morocco approximately between 99 and 93 million years ago. Some astronomers have also nicknamed the galaxy NGC 4151 "the Eye of Sauron" because of its peculiar shape.

This new discovery is especially important as butterfly populations around the world are threatened by habitat loss and the effects of climate change . The famous monarch butterfly was also classified last year as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Therefore, the more we are able to understand the taxonomy of these insects, the better we will be able to protect them.