Strange India All Strange Things About India and worldStrange India All Strange Things About India and world


British broadcaster and conservationist David Attenborough is a much-loved figure for his natural history documentaries

Belgian scientists have named a new “very large and robust” Vietnamese sub-species of praying mantis after British television naturalist David Attenborough.

According to the Royal Belgian Society of Entomology, a recent expedition to the Annamite mountains in central Vietnam uncovered a mantis now known as Titanodula attenboroughi.

The Belgian Journal of Entmology describes 94-year-old Attenborough as “one of the world’s most beloved naturalists”.

It describes the new-found insect as a “very large and robust praying mantis. Head triangular, antennae filiform. Long but robust pronotum, with smooth dorsal surface.”

Mantises were once assigned to the catch-all Herodula genus—dubbed a “wastebasket taxon” by the journal—but species of this group display a great variety of male genitalia, suggesting they are separate.

The research has allowed scientists to assign Attenborough’s eponymous mantis to a new group, Titanodula.

Attenborough was director of programming for British public broadcaster the BBC in the 1970s, but is best known for presenting an ambitious series of wildlife documentaries, beginning with Life on Earth in 1979.

He is a much-loved public figure and has received other honours, including a knighthood.

In 2016 the British polar research vessel was named the RRS Sir David Attenborough despite a poll of Internet users suggesting it be dubbed “Boaty McBoatface”.


Fanciful ‘Boaty McBoatface’ passed over for vessel name


© 2020 AFP

Citation:
Belgian scientists name mantis after Attenborough (2020, August 5)
retrieved 5 August 2020
from https://phys.org/news/2020-08-belgian-scientists-mantis-attenborough.html

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.





Source link

By AUTHOR

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *