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R.E.M. star Michael Stipe has helped a top German entomologist and a research associate at Yale University name a new ant species.
Strumigenys ayersthey is named after Charles Ayers, the artist and political activist who was part of Andy Warhol s fabled circle of friends and stars. The name uses the suffix they , rather than a gendered Latin suffix, to celebrate gender diversity. Entomologist Phillip Hoenle discovered the ant in the rainforest in Ecuador and sent a specimen to Douglas B. Booher, a research associate in the Yale Center for Biodiversity and Global Change and the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, to confirm if it really was a new species.
Michael Stipe Helps Name Ant Species
R.E.M. star Michael Stipe has helped a top German entomologist and a research associate at Yale University name a new ant species.
Strumigenys ayersthey is named after Charles Ayers, the artist and political activist who was part of Andy Warhol’s fabled circle of friends and stars. The name uses the suffix ‘they’, rather than a gendered Latin suffix, to celebrate gender diversity.
Entomologist Phillip Hoenle discovered the ant in the rainforest in Ecuador and sent a specimen to Douglas B. Booher, a research associate in the Yale Center for Biodiversity and Global Change and the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, to confirm if it really was a new species.
Michael Stipe Lends Top Entomologist a Hand in the Naming of New Ant Species
Celebrity
After discovering the ant in the rainforest in Ecuador, Phillip Hoenle reaches out to the R.E.M. frontman for assistance in asking one of Andy Warhol s legion of Superstars for the name use. May 7, 2021
Michael Stipe has helped a top German entomologist and a research associate at Yale University name a new ant species.
Strumigenys ayersthey is named after Charles Ayers, the artist and political activist who was part of Andy Warhol s fabled circle of friends and stars.
Entomologist Phillip Hoenle discovered the ant in the rainforest in Ecuador and sent a specimen to Douglas B. Booher, a research associate in the Yale Center for Biodiversity and Global Change and the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, to confirm if it really was a new species.
Rolling Stone Menu Michael Stipe Helps Name Ant Species After Andy Warhol Superstar
Strumigenys ayersthey is named after Jeremy Ayers, who performed in Warhol’s films as Silva Thin and fostered the local music and arts scene in Athens, Georgia
By Stephen Smith/SIPA USA/AP Images; AP Images
A German entomologist and a research associate at Yale University, with some help from R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe, have named a new ant species
Strumigenys ayersthey, after Charles “Jeremy” Ayers, the artist and political activist who was part of Andy Warhol’s legion of “Superstars” as the gender-bending Silva Thin.
The ant came in a small vial of ethanol, sealed in a plastic bag, and packed in a small cardboard box. It was addressed to Yale’s Douglas B. Booher.
German entomologist Phillip Hoenle had discovered the ant, which he noted had some peculiar features, in a rain forest in Ecuador. Now he wanted Booher, a research associate in the Yale Center for Biodiversity and Global Change and the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, to confirm whether this trap ant was truly a new species. If so, Hoenle and Booher would have the honor of naming it.
Booher had imagined this moment for years. He had even discussed it with an old friend from Athens, Georgia, the artist and former R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe. After receiving the specimen he reached out to Stipe.