Even though drag has been a very important art form since many decades ago, it has become really more popular these recent years since society has become a little bit more open-minded.
There are a lot of remarkable drag queens, but one name that everyone knows is RuPaul. The supermodel of the world has become a celebrity thanks to all of their amazing abilities, from their looks to their acting and songs.
RuPaul has built a shocking empire that made them a recognizable name in every corner of the world, but recently they made history again, this time in a different field than they usually stand out.
Thanks to entomologist Bryan Lessard, we now have the so-called RuPaul fly. This is one of the most recently studied insects from Australia, that reminded Lessard of the pop culture icon.
The new soldier fly, scientifically called Opalluma from the Latin for opal and thorn, is described as “little gems buzzing around the forest floor”. He next added the rupaul because of the bright and shiny rainbow colors that made Lessard think about the most famous drag queen in the world.
He is a fan of RuPaul’s Drag Race, and he was watching it while he studied the fly, so he wanted to pay tribute to the drag icon. The charisma and uniqueness of the insect are RuPaul worthy, so Lessard hoped they would like the honor.
And RuPaul did, they tweeted about the fly, specifically a highlight of an interview where Lessard said that the fly had “a costume of shiny metallic rainbow colors” and “legs for days”, such as the drag queen.
Actually, Lessard has named over 50 species, some of them after Pokémons, and he likes to give them celebrity names because it helps endangered creatures to gain attention that hopefully will help to preserve them.
In this case, the RuPaul fly has been existing under the radar for over a century, but there wasn’t any research about it. A big amount of the species was lost during the fires of Australia a couple of years ago, along with other types of practically unknown insects.
Cool and fun names make these species more memorable than they would be if they were complicated ones. The first celebrity who was given the honor was Beyonce, over a decade ago, but recently it has become a popular practice among entomologists.
There have been a lot of runways in the reality show where drag queens had been inspired by bugs, but maybe in the next season, RuPaul would make an actual insect challenge as a fun nod to the fly.
