Cristian C. Lucañas, an entomologist at the University of the Philippines Los Baños Museum of Natural History. He named cockroaches after a Pokemon character and a sinister villain from the Lord of the Rings.
In early 2023, he helped scientists from Singapore to describe a cockroach that was misidentified in 2016 when it was discovered. The cockroach was discovered in Bukit Timah Nature Reserve in Singapore, which Lucañas named Nocticola pheromosa after the Pokemon Pheromosa.
Nocticola pheromosa and the Pokemon Pheromosa
The discovery was published in the Journal of Asia-Pacific Entomology on February 27, 2023. It is the first time a cockroach of the genus Nocticola has been documented in Singapore, but the two entomologists became curious when a then-unknown male species of the cockroach was found in Bukit Timah nature reserve in 2016.
According to the study published by Lucañas and Foo, the cockroach was named after the Pokemon Pheromosa, whose white appearance may have been inspired by the American cockroach that has recently molted.
Compared to house cockroaches, N. pheromosa has a more slender and delicate body. “This represents the ninth known fully-winged species of the genus,” wrote the authors.
But that’s not the only cockroach species that Lucañas named after something from pop culture.
Earlier in January 2023, the Filipino entomologist redescribed another species of cockroach. In his paper, Lucañas painstakingly compared P. americana to 16 specimens, but most notably, he described in detail the features of the genitalia of the male Periplaneta, eventually concluding that what he observed was a totally different species. The specimens he studied were loaned from the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
He named it after Hobbits from the Lord of the Rings. The genus is now called Hobbitoblatta.
“The specimens exhibit sexual dimorphism, which is absent in P. americana; and have four other morphological differences with Periplaneta specimens I was able to study,” he explained.
As if that wasn’t enough, Lucañas proceeded to study the cockroaches from specimens from Oxford even further and realized another one could be belong to a new genus.
A certain specimen labelled as P. lata was suspiciously different from other known records, so he took a closer look at the unhandsome specimen. He realized that the insect had features far disctinct from other species of cockroaches, so he deciced to erect a new genus for animal. He called it Nazgultaure.
“It is a combination of the word ‘Nazgul’, a secondary antagonist in the books, and the Quenya word, ‘taure’ which means forest,” Lucañas said in a report by the UPLB Museum of Natural History.
But he says the insect could still belong to another subfamily.
“We need to study more old specimens or collect and describe new ones which we can place under Nazgultaure. Once we are able to do that, we may able to decide whether the genus belongs to a separate subfamily.”
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