New Wasp Species Found in Russia Named After University of California, Riverside

Posted on May 6, 2013

An entomologist at the University of California, Riverside has discovered a new wasp species in Russia. The wasp has been named Gonatocerus ucri after the university, commonly abbreviated as UCR.

Serguei V. Triapitsyn, principal museum scientist at the Entomology Research Museum at UCR, had been sorting wasps from the Russian Far East, when he discovered several tiny mymarid wasps just 1.1 to 1.2 millimeters in body length. A research paper on the new wasp was published in the international scientific journal Zootaxa.

Gonatocerus ucri is primarily brown in color and has long antennae and wings. Its host is unknown but other species in the same genus are beneficial insects known to parasitize eggs of leafhoppers.

Triapitsyn said in a statement, "I decided to name it after UCR because that's where I work. The UCR Entomology Research Museum has extensive collections of parasitoid wasps from throughout the world, and I routinely discover new species among the collected material. I will soon also be describing another new species, this one from southern California, and name it after the Entomology Research Museum."


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