Smithsonian scientists name an Amazon ant after Radiohead

Ana Ješovnik and Ted R. Schultz of the Smithsonian's Ant Lab in Washington, D.C. have named a newly described ant after Radiohead, in a study published in ZooKeys on 24 April. Ješovnik, the lead author, said in the Smithsonian's news release that the name honours the band's music.

But more importantly, we wanted to acknowledge the conservation efforts of the band members, especially in raising climate change awareness.

Ana Ješovnik¹

Sericomyrmex radioheadi comes from the Venezuelan Amazon. It is a silky ant, a relative of the leaf-cutters, and like them it farms fungus. The study describes three new species collected in Central and South America and revises the genus from their DNA and their bodies. The females, workers and queens alike, are coated in a white, crystal-like layer that the males lack and that only showed up under a scanning electron microscope. Nobody yet knows what it does; the team are testing whether it guards the fungus gardens against disease and parasites.