Story by Bri Hunter
Contributing writer
nkendall1@murraystate.edu
A new insect species that has been discovered by a Murray State biology professor’s daughter has been officially named after her.
Laura Sullivan-Beckers teaches undergraduate zoology, ornithology and human anatomy classes at the University and has a five year-old daughter named Sylvie. In 2016 Sylvie she uncovered a new insect species at the age of two.
When the two were out planting, Sylvie accidentally overwatered a lower bed and the two noticed insects floating in the standing water. Sullivan-Beckers recognized them being tree-hoppers, but discovering them in soil was odd.
Through the summer, she and her daughter collected thousands of tree-hoppers with 72 being apart of the new species. Sullivan-Beckers noticed that the insects were near wasps, which had been collecting them to prey on.
Sullivan-Beckers credits her daughter for the discovery. She later contacted her Ph.D advisor and then sent samples to a taxonomist in Washington, D.C. where it was a confirmed new species.
Sullivan-Beckers said that discovering a new species is still something she finds hard to fathom.
“I still can’t believe that these undiscovered treehoppers were essentially in my own backyard,” Sullivan-Beckers said. “What’s even crazier is that I never would have found had it not been for the wasps delivering them my lower bed and my daughter overwatering it. It’s true that science involves luck and serendipity. I was at the right place at the right time with the perfect field assistant.”
Sulivan-Beckers wanted to honor her daughter’s discovery by requesting the species be named Hebetica Sylviae.
“As soon as it was confirmed as a new species, I knew I wanted it named after Sylvie,” Sullivan-Beckers said. “She was at the heart of the discovery, and it’s not every day a mother gets the chance to name a species after her child.”
Later this month, Sullivan-Beckers and her collaborator Stuart McKamey, at the United States Department of Agriculture, will publish the Hebetica Sylviae characterization in “Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington.” As of now, they have a name and characterization of the insect but are working to learn more about its life. Sullivan-Beckers is working to find more of these treehoppers before the wasps prey on them first.