Life 5 May 2021
This ant has been named Strumigenys ayersthey
A newly discovered species of ant from Ecuador has been named with the suffix “-they”, rather than a traditional gendered Latin suffix, to celebrate gender diversity.
The ant was discovered by Philipp Hoenle at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany, in 2018. He sent a photograph to taxonomic expert Douglas Booher at Yale University, who recognised it as a new species in the genus
Strumigenys.
In contrast to traditional species-naming practices, which only recognise one of two distinct genders with the suffixes “-ae” for women and “-i” for men, Booher suggested using the gender non-binary identifier “they” instead, naming the ant