Legendary Pokémon become real species, learn more

Three Australian beetles have earned their legendary Pokémon names.

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Just in time to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Pokémon franchise, entomologists named three newly discovered species of Australian beetle in honor of the three legendary Pokémon birds Articuno, Moltres and Zapdos.

The three newly named species belong to the genus Binburrum (insect genus), a group of brightly colored beetles found in southern Australia, and their new official scientific names are Binburrum articuno, Binburrum moltres and Binburrum zapdos.

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B. articuno, B. moltres and B. zapdos

In addition to having wings, the legendary beetles don't look much like their animated namesakes, however. B. zapdos and Zapdos have a black and yellow color in common, but that's all. So far, none of the beetles appear to have elemental powers of ice, fire or electricity, and there is no word from scientists about what their Pokémon battle statistics might be.

Why Pokémon names?

The reason the newly discovered beetles are named after Legendary Pokémon is their apparent rarity. Articuno, Moltres and Zapdos are some of the rarest and most difficult to find - let alone catch - creatures in the Pokémon game series (if you're a Pokémon Go player, you'll recognize these three five-star raids that appear only occasionally during events like the Last month's Kanto Tour).

And when entomologists Darren Pollock and Yun Hsiao sat down to describe the new species of beetle they had collected, they realized how few specimens they had found for each of the hitherto unknown beetles.

This suggests that beetles may be quite rare in the wild. "Yun [Hsiao] says he was an aspiring Pokémon trainer when he was young," Pollock told the interviewer at Eastern New Mexico University, Desiree Cooper, "And then, due to the rarity of specimens of the three new species, he suggested that we name the three Pokémon."

Other real-world Pokémon

These three beetles are not the first insects to bear the name of Pokémon. A wasp called Stentorceps weedlei was named in honor of Weedle, because they both have sharp spines in the middle of their heads. A species of bee is called Chilicola charizard, for less intuitively obvious reasons.

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Bulbasaurus phylloxyron

Elsewhere in the animal kingdom, a species of pterosaur is officially Aerodactylus scolopaciceps, while a mammal ancestor called dicinodon is called Bulbasaurus phylloxyron in honor of its bulbous snout, and the name of the species “phylloxyron”Translates to“razor blade“One of the registered trademarks of Bulbasaur attacks.

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