Slovenia: home to former first lady Melania Trump, "breathtaking" landscapes, and one of the most controversial insects on the planet. Not that the Anophthalmus hitleri ground beetle is inherently a troublemaker—but, as you may have surmised from its longer scientific moniker, its designation as the "eyeless Hitler" has caused distress among many zoologists. The New York Times explains the rare, cave-dwelling insect had its controversial name bestowed upon it in 1937 by a bug collector in Austria "as an expression of my admiration" for the Nazi dictator. Fast forward to the 21st century, and there's now a "ferocious debate" over the bug's label, as well as others who've had similarly "objectionable" names given to them (there's a moth-like insect in Libya named after Mussolini, for example), and whether it should be changed.
Part of the issue is that within the zoological field, original labels are adhered to rather rigidly, with "a code that says the valid name of an organism is the one that was first in use," and names are "altered only in extreme circumstances." In fact, earlier this year, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature decided it would not consider "ethics-based renamings," noting that "the stability in scientific naming would be undermined if species names were changed because of cultural fashions, resulting in massive confusion," per the Times. But some scientists say it's past time to ditch some of the more offensive labels. "In which other spheres of human endeavor is anything still named for Hitler?" asks botanist Estrela Figueiredo of South Africa's Nelson Mandela University. "The criteria must change and adapt like the rest of society." (Read more on the backlash-drawing beetle here.)
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