ASU Dean Calls George W. Bush a Slime Mold-Eating Beetle
On this Election Day we tell the tale of Arizona State vice president and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Quentin Wheeler, whose work recently drew raised eyebrows from the White House.
(Photo courtesy Arizona State University/Charles Kazilek)
Quentin Wheeler is not exactly a bleeding heart liberal. Wheeler, an entomologist currently serving as a vice president and dean of Arizona State’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, is actually a Republican.
So it came as a surprise to learn that when assigning scientific names for a recently-discovered group of quite disgusting slime mold-eating beetles, Wheeler looked to president George W. Bush and his cabinet for inspiration.
As he explained in an interview on entomology with National Public Radio, Wheeler and student Kelly Miller named three of the beetles Agathidium bushi, Agathidium rumsfeldi and Agathidium cheneyi.
Wheeler claims that naming slime mold-eating beetles after Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney was meant as a compliment. He actually had to explain this to the president himself when he received a call from the White House.
So we’ll take Wheeler’s word for it. But his tale did get us thinking about who we’d tribute as namesake of a species of slime mold-eating beetles.
Agathidium stoopsi, anyone?
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Agathidium wilburi
[...] W. Bush could’ve taken offense when an ASU professor recently named a nasty slime mold-eating beetle after him. But the president rose above and invited the Arizona State men’s and women’s track teams and [...]