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Life

18th Nov 2019

A newly discovered wasp has been named after Idris Elba

Olivia Hayes

Ah, Idris Elba.

When we think of Idris Elba in Her HQ we think of The Wire, or when he played a DJ set at a Forbidden Fruit after-party in Opium.

Memories.

However, a newly-found species of wasp has now been named after him. The insect was found in Guanajuato, Mexico. It actually turned out to parasite to the eggs of a bug called the bagrada bug which eats vegetables such as cabbage and broccoli.

Dr Refugio Lomeli-Flores, who is based in Guanajuato, said that the genus Idris was first noted in 1856 and only infected spider eggs – so the discovery of the wasp that infected bagrada eggs is completely new – so they named him Idris elba.

The researchers said that Idris elba (the wasp, not the bug) is exceptional (well the wasp is pretty exceptional too)  because it shows that these wasps can make the leap from parasitising the spider eggs to the stink bug eggs.

The authors, from Colegio de Postgraduados (Mexico), Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) and the Florida State Collection of Arthropods (FSCA) wrote in the Journal of Hymenoptera Research: “The psychological and developmental study of B. hilaris eggs for I. elba is remarkable given the fact that the accidental host is not closely related to the hosts that are usually attacked by Idris species.”

The more you know…

 

Topics:

Idris Elba,wasp