What to do with an insect called Hitler? – 07/01/2024 – Science

Since the end of World War II, no scientific name for an animal has caused more controversy than Anophthalmus hitleria designation that describes a rare, amber-colored carabid beetle that inhabits some damp caves in central Slovenia.

The problem isn’t the genus name, Anophthalmus, which denotes that, like other cave beetles that live in perpetual darkness, this one has no eyes. What many zoologists find repugnant is the species name, hitleri, which an Austrian insect collector gave the beetle in 1937 in honor of Adolf Hitler, despite the leader’s ruthless and racist actions, including the Night of the Long Knives in 1934 and the Nuremberg Race Laws of 1935, with the Holocaust still to come.

Appropriately, Anophthalmus hitleri, or “eyeless Hitler,” is a significant predator that Doug Yanega, an entomologist at the University of California, Riverside, said is likely at the top of the microanimal food chain and “eats anything smaller and weaker than itself.” Still, the connection with the despot was considered so distasteful that when the creature was featured on a Yugoslav postage stamp in 1984, its Latin name was withheld.

These days, the so-called Hitler beetle is at the center of a fierce debate among scientists over whether animals with objectionable biological names should be given new names. Zoological nomenclature follows a code that says the valid name of an organism is the one that was used first and, because the convention prevents change, A. hitleri has endured. A name can only be changed in extreme circumstances related to the development of scientific knowledge, but insensitive names given in the past have been immutable.

Still, some scholars have proposed deleting names considered offensive or exclusionary or that celebrate racists, colonizers and the most monstrous members of the human species. Among the most problematic names are Hypopta mussoliniia Libyan moth named after Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, and Hibbertia, a genus of Australian guinea flowers named after George Hibbert, a patron of botany who became wealthy from the transatlantic slave trade.

There are even calls to completely abandon the practice of naming animals after real or fictional people. The American Ornithological Society recently disclosed that, “in an effort to right past wrongs,” it will begin changing the common English names of birds that are named after individuals.

“In general, eponyms have historically not been especially useful scientifically,” said May Berenbaum, an entomologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “They generally provide little information about the appearance or habits of the insect being named.” But she noted that Megapropodiphora Arnoldian apparently muscular fly, somewhat resembles Arnold Schwarzenegger, as well as being just 0.395 millimeters long.

The Zoologist’s Code

The Binomial Classification System is the basis for cataloging life on Earth. The system was formalized in 1753 by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus, whose own questionable taxonomic contributions included “Penicillus penis“, a mollusk, and “Labia minor“, a dermapteran insect. “Old white privilege is classic,” Berenbaum said.

In January, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, which arbitrates the taxonomy of animal species, announced that it would not consider renamings based on ethics. An article published by the commission in the Journal of the Linnean Society stated that stability in scientific nomenclature would be undermined if species names were changed because of cultural fads, resulting in widespread confusion.

A group of scholars reacted to this over the summer, arguing in the paper that taxonomy must be socially responsible and responsive, and that the commission wrongly prioritizes tradition over ethics. “The decision is a perfect example, unfortunately, of scientists trying to ignore the world around them,” said Christopher J. Bae, an anthropologist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. “Fortunately, there are a growing number of scientists, especially those from the global south who have traditionally been underrepresented in these debates, who are beginning to speak out on these issues.”

One such scientist is Estrela Figueiredo, a botanist at the Ria Olivier Herbarium at Nelson Mandela University in South Africa. “In what other spheres of human endeavor is something still named after Hitler?” she said. “Criteria must change and adapt like the rest of society.” The Zoological Code states that no author should propose a name that, to their knowledge or reasonable belief, is likely to be offensive for any reason. Compliance with this warning is voluntary and subjective. “Hindsight has turned many names that were not offensive in the past into names that are offensive now,” Yanega said. “But trying to rewrite or suppress history does history a disservice, and censorship can do as much harm as good.”

Frank-Thorsten Krell, a member of the zoological commission, noted that the name of the Hitler beetle has so far not been challenged through official procedures. Occasional complaints were reported in the press, he said, but no one ever made a case to change it.

Max Barclay, curator at London’s Natural History Museum, believes it is best to combat reprehensible species names, as Italian entomologists did five years ago when they found a cave beetle closely related to the A. hitleri. The researchers named it Duvalius owensi named after Jesse Owens, the black American athlete who single-handedly destroyed the myth of Hitler’s Aryan supremacy by winning four gold medals at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin.

“This was a deliberate slap in the face to Hitler,” said Barclay, “but done with humor and honoring someone deserving, rather than taking the puritanical, authoritarian approach of changing inappropriate names.”

‘An Expression of My Admiration’

Anophthalmus hitleri it was discovered in the former Yugoslavia on June 20, 1932, four months after Austrian-born Hitler became a German citizen and four days before he demanded, as leader of the Nazi Party, that the government declare martial law in Germany. The discoverer, a naturalist named Vladimir Kodric, found the insect in a cave called Pekel (a word that, translated, means hell) near the city of Celje, in present-day Slovenia. The specimen is now on display behind glass at the Natural History Museum in Basel, Switzerland.

Kodric sent the specimen to Oskar Scheibel, a railroad engineer whose hobby was coleopterology, the study of beetles. Scheibel was convinced that the insect represented a new species, but delayed publishing the news to be sure. In 1937, with Hitler firmly established as chancellor, Scheibel went back on a promise to name the beetle after Kodric and registered it as Anophthalmus hitleri. He then notified the chancellery in Berlin about the insect and its new name. (Some experts have suggested that Scheibel may have mocked Hitler by naming a blind insect after him, but the accompanying description reads: “Given to Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler as an expression of my admiration.”)

Given Hitler’s fondness for beetles — in 1933, he commissioned Ferdinand Porsche to design the “people’s car” (Volkswagen, in German), which became the Beetle — it is not surprising that the tribute pleased the Nazi leader, who sent Scheibel a thank you. Interestingly, contemporary offers to introduce varieties of a rose and a strawberry named after Hitler did not prosper. According to Michael Ohl’s 2019 book “The Art of Naming,” Hans Heinrich Lammers, head of the Reich Chancellery, rejected both requests, informing interested parties that, “after careful consideration,” Hitler “requests that a name in his honor is not used.”

Hitler had strong opinions about what animals should be called. In 1942, the German Society for Mastozoology passed a resolution to replace the common names for bats (Fledermaus) and shrews (Spitzmaus), arguing that neither was a maus, or rat. The society’s decision received a quick response from Martin Bormann, Hitler’s private secretary. On the orders of the outraged Führer, Bormann instructed Lammers to “communicate to the responsible parties in no uncertain terms that these name changes must be reversed immediately.”

The message continued: “Should the members of the Mastozoological Society have nothing more essential to contribute to the war effort or something more intelligent to do, perhaps an extended stint in the construction battalion on the Russian front could be arranged.”

Beetle Mania

Today, thanks to Hitler’s notoriety, the beetle that bears his name is threatened with extinction. In 2006, the popular German magazine Der Spiegel revealed that almost all of the specimens preserved in the Bavarian State Zoological Collection in Munich had been stolen. To the astonishment of the coleopterology community, the beetle has become a coveted trophy among collectors of Nazi memorabilia, who capture the insects in caves and sell them on the black market for up to $2,000 each. To protect its suddenly popular beetles, Slovenia has enacted legislation against collecting the insects in protected areas and trading in protected species such as A. hitleri. Barclay, the British museum curator and co-author of “Beetles of the World: A Natural History,” is skeptical of extinction hysteria. How could one estimate the population of A. hitlerimuch less determine with any credibility that it was declining?

Barclay challenged anyone to draw a Venn diagram of “skilled entomologists”, “skilled speleologists” (cave explorers) and “neo-Nazis”. He asked, “How many people are at the intersection of these three small circles?” He said only people with all three characteristics posed a risk to the beetle.

“I suspect no one fits at this intersection,” he said. “I know every good entomologist who can find and recognize them, and I’m pretty sure none of them are Nazis and only two or three have ever been in a cave.”