Newly Discovered Thailand Wasp Gets Named After Lady Gaga
Scientists in Thailand have recently discovered a new kind of wasp using a new system of DNA barcoding. And who better to name it after than the one-and-only Lady Gaga?
According to The Guardian, aleiodes gaga is basically a 5mm parasitoid wasp from a single female specimen collected along a nature trail at 507 metres elevation in the Chae Son National Park. Besides that, experts know almost nothing else about it.
But what's really interesting is the revolutionary technique used to discover it. According to io9, Lady Gaga wasp was part of the very first "turbo-taxonomic study" based almost entirely on COI barcoded specimens. This technique involves using a fragment of the mitochondrial COI gene, which reduces the time it takes to identify and prove the existence of a new species.