Scientists have the rare honor of getting to name things. If you’re the first to discover a species, you get to label it whatever you want, which is why we have animals with metal names like Vampyroteuthis infernalis, or the Vampire Squid from Hell. It’s also why the creator of The Far Side has no fewer than three animals named after him, and why Chewbacca now has a beetle of his own to join the many, many animals named after Star Wars characters.
Specifically, Chewie’s name has been bestowed on a weevil from Papua New Guinea, Trigonopterus chewbacca. It doesn’t have a mournful yowl or a bowcaster, but it does have thick, overlapping scales that the scientists claim reminds them of Chewie’s fur. We don’t see it, but hey, we’re not scientists.
As we noted, Chewie isn’t the first Star Wars character with an animal named after him. Yoda has two animals, an acorn worm and a marine isopod, named after him, and Darth Vader has three, all of which are insects and one of which is a slime mold beetle. What, guys, you couldn’t name it after Mos Eisley? But at least he has it better than Han; Han may have gotten named after something first, and even gotten a genus named after him, but still, the best he can do is a trilobite.
(Via USA Today)
