NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld can now also be called bushi, cheneyi and rumsfeldi, or simply slime-mold beetles.
Two former Cornell University entomologists named three species in the genus Agathidium after the U.S. leaders, Cornell announced on Wednesday.
Quentin Wheeler and Kelly Miller christened 65 new species of slime-mold beetles, named for the fungi-like molds on which they feed, which they discovered after collecting thousands of specimens for a study of their evolution and classification.
Wheeler, who after 24 years as a professor of entomology and plant biology at Cornell is now the keeper and head of entomology at the Natural History Museum in London, said the U.S. leaders were being honored for having "the courage of their convictions."
