Ridiculous Scientific Names #9 - Chewbacca's Beetle

In a galaxy far, far away, there is Chewbacca. A tall, intelligent and hairy warrior from the planet Kashyyyk. But here on planet Earth we have Trigonopterus chewbacca a small, black, flightless beetle from the tropical forests of New Britain named after the famous Star Wars character.

Here's a comparison of the two, the resemblance is uncanny:

a) dorsal view, b) lateral view, c) penis :D (via zookeys & starwars.wikia.com)

In all seriousness though, why was T. chewbacca named this way? Here's the explanation provided by the researchers that first described it:

This epithet is a noun in apposition and based on the likeable fictional character Chewbacca in George Lucas’ Star Wars movies, portrayed primarily by Peter Mayhew. This species has dense scales on the head and the legs, which reminds the authors of Chewbacca’s dense fur. [credit]

T. chewbacca is a newly discovered species, first described in 2016 along with 3 other beetles from the same genus,  T. obsidianus, T. puncticollis and T. silaliensis.

All four of them were discovered around the same area in New Britain, Papua New Guinea. Unlike Chewbacca though, with a length of only 2.78 to 3.13 mm their size isn't something to impress.

As for the other three species, here's the reasoning behind their naming in case you are curious:

1. T. obsidianus:  Name comes from the latin word "obsidianus" for the color of the polished volcanic mineral obsidian which resembles the color of the pronotum and elytra (see graph below) of the species. 
2. T. puncticollis: Name is a combination of the Latin words punctum (small hole) and collum (neck), referring to the markedly punctate pronotum of the species.
3. T. silaliensis:  Named after the village (Silali) near which the species was discovered. 

Beetle Morphology (credit)

Interestingly, before the discovery of these 4 species, there was only one  Trigonopterus  species known to exist in the region, Trigonopterus pembertoni and the researchers are confident there are more to be found if someone bothers to check!

By the way, T. chewbacca isn't the only Trigonopterus species named after a famous character. There is also Trigonopterus attenboroughi which as you probably guessed is named after the famous English broadcaster and naturalist, Sir David Frederick Attenborough. This is again a small species, about 2.5 mm long, first discovered in 2014  on Mount Bawang in the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan.

I don't think there's much else interesting to say about these critters so allow me to close today's post with some epic and motivational quotes by Chewbacca himself:

More Ridiculously Named Animals

Didn't have enough? Ok! Here are some more animals with stupid names:  

• Stanley Kubrick's Fro
• A Horseshoe Crab Named After Darth Vader
• Pink Floyd Shrimp And Animals Named After Harrison Ford
• Darth Vader's and Arnold Schwarzenegger's Beetles
• Animals Named After Donald Trump
• The Bernie Sanders Spider 
• Tritonia khaleesi, Queen of the Nudibranches and the Sea Slugs 
• A beetle called Hitler