Taylor Swift, an American singer famed for her musical abilities, has received a new honor. She is currently the name of a new millipede species.
The new species of twisted-claw millipede was discovered in Tennessee's mountains. Scientists discovered 17 new species in the Appalachian Mountains.
The new species was named after the famous artist
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The twisted-claw millipede Nannaria swiftae joins 16 other distinct species identified from the United States' Appalachian Mountains, as per ScienceDaily.
These little-known invertebrates play an important function as decomposers, breaking down leaf litter and releasing nutrients back into the environment.
They reside on the forest floor, in which they feed on decaying leaves and other plant materials, and they can be difficult to catch since they like to remain buried in the soil, sometimes totally beneath the surface.
The new species is described in a study report published in the open-access journal ZooKeys by scientists Derek Hennen, Jackson Means, and Paul Marek from Virginia Tech in the United States.
The study was supported by a National Science Foundation project called Advancing Revisionary Taxonomy and Systematics.
Because of their presence in museum collections, scientists long suspected that the twisted-claw millipedes included many new species, but these specimens went undescribed for decades.
To fix this, the researchers began a multi-year project to collect new specimens throughout the eastern U.S.
They traveled to 17 US states, checking under leaf litter, rocks, and logs to find species so that they could sequence their DNA and scientifically describe them
According to experts from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), these millipedes are normally chestnut brown to black with a bimaculate pattern of orange to red, or white dots, and may occasionally have stripes
Researchers reported 17 new species after analyzing over 1,800 specimens obtained during their field survey or retrieved from university and museum collections.
Nannaria marianae, named after Dr. Hennen's wife, and Nannaria swiftae, named after 11-time Grammy-winning musician and composer Taylor Swift.
"Nannaria swiftae is exclusively known from Tennessee and has been collected in the counties of Cumberland, Monroe, and Van Buren," researchers said in their paper, as per Independent.
"This species was gathered in mesic woods with hemlock, maple, oak, tuliptree, witch hazel, and pine at altitudes ranging from 481m (1,578ft) to 1,539m (5049ft)," they said.
Entomologists hope to find more millipede species in the southern Appalachian Mountains.
The authors reported 17 new species based on over 1800 specimens obtained during their field investigation or retrieved from university and museum collections, including Nannaria marianae, named after Hennen's wife.
They noticed that millipedes prefer wooded settings near streams and are frequently found buried beneath the earth, displaying more cryptic behaviors than cousins.
The newly identified millipedes are 18 to 38 mm long, with lustrous caramel-brown to black bodies with white, red, or orange markings and white legs.
Males have short, twisted, and flattened claws on their front legs, which gives rise to their popular name.
Derek Hennen, the study's primary author, is a lover of Taylor Swift.
"Her music helped me have to go through the highs and lows of graduate school," he adds, "so naming a new millipede species after she is my way of thanking her."
