New Species of Moth Named to Honor the Cherokee Nation

A team of American scientists has discovered a new species of brownish white moths in the southern Appalachian Mountains and have named it to honor the Cherokee Nation.

Discovered in North America, the new science species is named as Cherokeea attakullakulla. The unique moth was initially discovered by Professor Dr. John G. Franclemont of Cornell University in 1953, who was examining the insects collected at the Highlands Biological Station, Macon County, North Carolina.

"The moth named to honor the Cherokee Nation, whose members were exemplary stewards of the habitats and resources of the region, and also to honor one of their most revered leaders, Chief Attakullakulla, who in 1730 travelled to London and throughout the Carolinas to represent his peoples in the negotiation of various treaties," researchers say.

Recently, a retired biologist Dr. J. Bolling Sullivan III formerly working with the Duke University Marine Lab in Beaufort, North Carolina, encountered a huge population of the same insect during biological inventories in the mountainous region. It was then that the specimen was identified as an entirely new species. They named the new species 50 years after it was first discovered.

Working in collaboration with a retired entomologist Eric Quinter, from the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, the two highlighted the presence of two dozen species of moths and butterflies new to science. Their caterpillars feed on or are linked with the native bamboo species that constitutes their habitat called canebrakers.

"Fortunately, today much of this wondrous place and its extraordinarily diverse biota remains preserved as the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and the memory of those who first settled there remains immortalized in a tiny creature oblivious to it all." comments Dr. Eric Quinter.

The finding was documented in Zookeys.