Beetle named after Herefordshire wildlife consultant

Friday, 14 January 2011

A new type of beetle has been named after the Herefordshire wildlife consultant who discovered it, while on a trip to Africa.

Will Watson, from Docklow, discovered the water beetle on a trip to northern Mozambique.

It took a year and a half for international experts to agree it was a new type, and to give it the name Haliplus watsoni.

Will Watson says it's a rare thing for a species to be named after the finder:

"I only know of a couple of people who've found new species, and I don't know anyone who's had something named after them."

Parasite bite

The water beetle was discovered in a floodplain pool on the Manda Wilderness Community Game Reserve in the Great Rift Valley.

The reserve covers 130,000 hectares; just over half the size of Herefordshire, but has only a fraction of its population.

The new beetle is very small, measuring only 2.7 mm long - the size of a full stop in a newspaper.

The discovery came at some cost to Will Watson - on the expedition he was bitten by a microscopic parasite, and became ill when he returned to Herefordshire:

"Unfortunately I picked up a parasite on the side of the lake… I got a little swelling on my base of my foot that itched a bit, and I didn't think any more of it, and about three months later I started getting other symptoms, and I got diagnosed… it was the first time they'd seen it in Leominster, certainly."

He told BBC Hereford & Worcester that having the beetle named after him made all the pain and illness worthwhile.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/herefordandworcester/hi/people_and_places/nature/newsid_9360000/9360701.stm