According to Science Blog, two former Cornell entomologists have named three new species of slime mold beetles (g. Agathidium) for Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.

The incident reminds me of a very similar scene in The Nutmeg of Consolation. Stephen Maturin visits Thomas Stamford Raffles (the lieutenant governor-general of Java):

‘I am about to achieve immortality [he tells Raffles]. Mr. Sowerby intends to name a nondescript plant after me.’
‘There’s glory for you!’ cried Raffles. ‘May we look at it?’
Stephen broke the seal, and from several layers of specimen-paper inside the letter he drew a flower and two leaves.
‘I have never seen it before,’ said Raffles, gazing at the dirty brown and purple disc. ‘It has a superficial resemblance to a stapelia, but of course it must belong to an entirely different family.’
‘Sure, it smells like some of the more fetid stapelias too,’ said Stephen. ‘Perhaps I should move it to the window-sill. He found it growing as a parasite on the glabrous bugwort. These viscid tumescent leaves with inward-curling margins incline me to think that it is also insectivorous.’ They considered the plant in silence, breathing as it were sideways, and then Stephen said ‘Do you think the gentleman may have had some satirical intent?’

I have to ask the same question of the two entomologists! 😉 Although they protest, with completely straight faces, that their intent was nothing of the kind…I still have to wonder.

If so, if satire was the intent….then bravo, Doctors Miller and Wheeler! 🙂