Welcome to my new series, where I introduce you to some of the weirdest and wackiest scientific names given to animals, along with the origins of those names. Today's ridiculously named animal is...

Anophthalmus hitleri

Really? A beetle named after Hitler? Who would in their right mind give it such a name? Well, to be fair, the creature was named this way back in 1937, well before the start of WW II and the atrocities that followed...

Anophthalmus hitleri (credit, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Who, how and when exactly first stumbled upon the species remains unknown. What we do know is that one specimen was sold to engineer, beetle collector and nazi-supporter Oscar Scheibel (1881 - 1953), sometime in 1933.

Scheibel was a German who at the time lived in Llubljana, the capital of Slovenia. That particular specimen was discovered in cave near the town of Celje.

Scheibel recognized that the beetle was an un-documented species and decided to name it after Adolf Hitler, who he seemingly admired a lot. I wonder if he died having any remorse for his beliefs and of course for honoring Hitler by naming a new species after him!

Apparently, Hitler was so delighted by Scheibel's actions that he send him a letter expressing his gratitude! And that's pretty much the story of how a beetle with no notable characteristics became notoriously famous. But being famous comes at a cost...

The Price of Being Named After Hitler...

Anophthalmus hitleri is a rare species found only in five humid caves in Slovenia. Thanks to its nameshake, it has become one of the must-have items for anyone trying to complete their “Hitler/NAZI/WW II/Whatever memorabilia” collection.

Although there are strict laws protecting the habitat and the beetle itself, slovenian authorities aren't 100 % successful at enforcing the law and many beetles end up in the black market.

Back in 2002 [2], a well preserved A. hitleri specimen could sell for up to 2000 $! Biologists and experts have expressed their concerns multiple times that the high demand from collectors might eventually lead to the species extinction! Not even museums appear to be safe! The Bavarian State Collection of Zoology had almost all of its A. hitleri specimens stolen back in 2006.

"There is a complete run on these creatures, and collectors are intruding on the beetles' natural habitat to get hold of them." said Martin Baehr to the Independent [4] in 2006.

(credit)

Why don't they just change the name or something?

Understandably, there are many who find an animal to be named after Hitler somewhat questionable and there have been a few proposals after the end of the WW II to rename the species. However, all these proposals have been rejected by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature.

The reason for this is that a name change is only accepted when there is a violation to the rules that applied at the time the name was registered. No such rule was broken back in 1937 so the A. hitleri name is here to stay..

A few words about the beetle

A. hitleri (Slovene: Hitlerjev brezokec) is a species of blind cave beetle that occurs in five humid caves in Slovenia. The species is poorly studied and as a result we know very little about it. We assume that it preys on other smaller cave inhabitants. Adults grow to be about 0.5 cm long.

The genus name (Anophthalmus) is greek-derived and means eyeless, so the full name roughly translates to "the eyeless one of Hitler".

The End

This concludes my first post in this new series of ridiculously named animals. I hope you enjoyed it and I would be happy if you left a comment with your thoughts, suggestions or whatever! See ya in my next post!

References

My dear readers, thank you for reading today's article. Hopefully, you found it interesting enough to follow me, @trumpman. You may also want to check my strange animal series where you get to discover some of the world's weirdest animals! Here are the last 5 weirdos of that series:

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Ridiculous Scientific Names #1 - A beetle called Hitler