CSIRO entomologist <a href="https://twitter.com/BrytheFlyGuy">Bryan Lessard</a> has now named 50 species of insects. It is a soldier fly of the Opaluma genus found in Australia. The entire genus has only been recently identified. Lessard has been naming species after celebrities since Scaptia beyonceae, the Beyonce fly, in 2011. He says the resulting publicity makes the practice worthwhile to generate interest in threatened species and the importance of preserving their environment.<blockquote>Lessard said naming the soldier fly Opaluma rupaul came as an “obvious decision”. “I was watching a lot of RuPaul’s Drag Race while examining the species and I know it would challenge RuPaul on the runway serving fierce looks,” Lessard said. “It has a costume of shiny metallic rainbow colours, and it has legs for days. I think once (Ru) sees the fly she’ll realise it’s quite fierce and hopefully appreciate the name.”</blockquote>

Opaluma rupaul is one of 13 new species of soldier fly that Lessard has identified while studying areas that were affected by the Australian bushfires of 2019-20. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/sep/15/rainbow-colours-and-legs-for-days-australian-fly-species-named-after-drag-star-rupaul">Read more about them at the Guardian</a>. A colleague of Lessard also named three beetles after&nbsp;Pokémon characters.&nbsp;-via <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/offbeat/comments/pong91/rainbow_colours_and_legs_for_days_australian_fly/">reddit&nbsp;</a>​ PS: RuPaul is fine with pronouns of either gender. (Top image credit: CSIRO) #species #taxonomy #RuPaul #fly

#rupaul