Newly Discovered Plant-Eating Insects Named After Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift, the award-winning billionaire singer and songwriter, is getting a new honor: The megastar is the namesake of several recently discovered species of plant-feeding insects from Australia. Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have named the new species of insect after Swift. A paper describing the 12 new species was published in the journal “Insect Systematics and Evolution.” Of these, one genus has been named Swiftiephylus, which combines “Swiftie,” the term for Swift’s fans, with “Phylus,” a name commonly used for this group of insects. Four species have been bestowed names inspired by the artist herself as well as several of her albums: Swiftiephylus taylorae, Swiftiephylus amator, Swiftiephylus intrepidus, and Swiftiephylus poetorum. The names are Latin versions of “Taylor,” “lover,” “fearless” and “poets,” respectively. Popular on Variety The Swiftiephylus insects are closely associated with Australian she-oaks, trees and shrubs adapted to environments ranging from tropical forests to coastal dunes and extreme heat, according to UC Riverside. Many plant bugs spend their entire lives on a particular host plant, from hatching through adulthood and egg laying. UC Riverside entomology doctoral student Sarah Schroeder decided to name the insects after Swift, in the hopes her association with the bugs will elevate both the insects and the concept of insect conservation more generally. “It felt authentic to me as a lifelong Swiftie to honor Taylor in this way, as well as bring attention to the diversity of insects that has yet to be discovered,” Schroeder said in a statement provided by the university. One of the reasons Schroeder dedicated the names of the new insects to Swift also has to do with their appearance: She believes their coloring helps them camouflage among she-oak flowers, which feature spindly red to orange structures. Similar cream-and-red coloration has been observed in distantly related bugs living on the same plants, suggesting camouflage may have evolved independently multiple times. “Taylor Swift’s iconic look is her blonde hair and red lips. These insects are pale yellow with accents of red throughout,” Schroeder said. “In the paper, I refer to them as blonde.” The new insects “are not known to be pests to either humans or animals,” according to UC Riverside. They are part of a family called Miridae, the largest family of true bugs, with more than 11,000 described species worldwide. Though the insects are new to science, the specimens themselves have been waiting decades to be formally described. They were among the plant bug specimens collected between 1995 and 2004 during a large biodiversity effort involving researchers from the American Museum of Natural History and Australian collaborators. The collecting effort yielded more than 50,000 specimens, many of which have required years of taxonomic work to sort, study and describe. “Taxonomy is the cornerstone of conservation,” Schroeder said. “If we don’t describe species, we don’t know they exist and can’t conserve them. Honoring Taylor through naming these species after her is a way to honor conservation science and bring attention to all the unknown diversity.” Variety has reached out to reps for Swift for any comment. UC Riverside’s bug researchers have named other species after celebs, including Jeff Daniels, who became the namesake of a tarantula-killing, hermaphroditic species of worm in 2022. Pictured above: Taylor Swift and one of the newly named Swiftiephylus bugs