With every year more and more Invertebrates are being discovered and each of these animals then need naming. Until recently I have assumed that this had reached its peak with the discovery and naming of two peacock jumping spiders aptly named; skeletorus and sparkle muffin. Oh how wrong i was!
With the release of the Hobbit movies J. R. R. Tolkien's middle earth characters became house hold names, and this gave an entomologist in North Dakota State University ,the research was conducted by Mariom Carvajal, a name for a newly descoverd shield bug, within the family acnthosomatidea. May i introduce the newly names Planois Smaug!
Researchers were quickly asked the burning question of why name this animal after a fictional dragon. As it turns out these animals have quite a lot in common with each other, the bugs were known to 'sleep' in collections for around 60 years, another factor was their sheer size, a dragon is huge and in its natural habitat this is the largest member of its family. The final reason has to be were you find this incredible insect, the Cabo do Hornos biosphere reserve on Navarino Island, which to you and me, looks a lot like Middle Earth. Being able to live in an environment so unspoiled it has been hailed the most pristine on earth, well that sounds a lot like living surrounded by treasure to me.