Hitler Beetle selling for $1,300 Dollars

[L Roebuck]

Beetle named after Hitler selling for EUR 1,000

HAMBURG - A tiny, blind, brown beetle that hides in caves in Slovenia is changing hands for as much as 1,000 euros (1,300 dollars) because it is named after Adolf Hitler, a Munich insect collector said Thursday.

The creatures were given the scientific name Anophtalmus hitleri in honour of the Nazi dictator when they were discovered in the 1930s. Collecting them has become a fad among neo-Nazis in recent years.

"There has been a rush for them. Collectors are scouring the caves," said Martin Baehr, the entomologist at the State Zoological Museum in Munich. "Almost all of our specimens at the museum have been stolen."

Baehr said it was unlikely the bugs would be hunted to extinction. Nazi interest in the insect goes back several years. Scientists are only slightly interested in it, as it is not too different from other cave-beetle species.

The bug was named by a German, Oscar Scheibel, the first to describe it scientifically. Some accounts say he received a letter of thanks from Hitler for the "honour". Species names, which are adapted to Latin form, can be descriptive or derived from proper names.

In some cases, a choice of name may be perceived as an insult. Agathidium bushi, a beetle that feeds on slime-mould, was named last year after US President George W Bush.

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[Dee]

I was under the assumption that Anophtalmus hitleri was an endangered species. Apparently my assumption may be incorrect.

[L Roebuck]

Hitler Moniker Imperils Blind Beetle

A blind cave beetle found only in Slovenia is under threat as collectors snap up the insects. Why? The creature has the misfortune of being named after Adolf Hitler.

Since nobody wants to have their child associated with the greatest villain of the 20th century, "Adolf" died out as a popular name decades ago. But now the Nazi dictator's name is posing a danger to a rare species of beetle.

Anophtalmus hitleri -- the insect's formal name -- has reportedly become so popular among neo-Nazis and collectors of World War II curiosities that the Hitler beetle is becoming hard to find.

"There's a real run on the animals. Collectors are encroaching on their natural habitats," Martin Baehr, a beetle expert at Munich's zoological research institute, told the DPA news agency. The institute's collection of beetles has been almost completely stolen, as they fetch upwards of €1,000 on the open market.

But how did unlucky beetle become saddled with its rather unfortunate name in the first place? Apparently Der Führer was flattered in the 1930s when Oscar Scheibel, a German insect enthusiast, discovered a blind cave-dwelling beetle in Slovenia and decided to give it Hitler's name. Maybe it was the bug's brown coloring -- matching Hitler's sartorial taste in uniforms -- that pleased the Nazi leader.

The Hitler beetle is found only in Solvenia. It's not unique enough to be of much scientific interest and apparently not on the verge of extinction. Hitler's other favorite beetle, of course, has fared much better: The classic Volkswagen model originally built to zip the Third Reich's masses around Germany shed its pre-war roots and became a worldwide automotive success story.

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[L Roebuck]

Slovenian Cave Beetle Bears Singular Name of Hitler

Ljubljana, Aug. 26

There are more than 100 species of cave beetles in Slovenia, and among the thousands of insects that are populating the country there is one that did not have much luck. It is a species belonging to the Anophthalmus group and is known to dwell in some 15 caves in central Slovenia. To prove the fact that destiny does have a sense of irony; the beetle takes its name after the Nazi dictator Adolph Hitler. Being an endangered insect, the Anophthalmus Hitleri is making Slovenian biologists and authorities worried for they have a hard time managing a fight against "poachers", wrote Slovenian weekly Mladina in an interview with cave fauna expert Slavko Polak.

The beetle's origins date back to 1933, when Slovenian nature scientist Vladimir Kodriè came across an unknown species of cave beetle from the Anophthalmus family in a cave near Celje in central Slovenia. In order to categorise the beetle, Kodriè turned to the collector, dealer, and German sympathiser Oskar Scheibl of Zagreb, Croatia. He gave the beetle the temporary name of Anophthalmus Kodrici, in honour of his discoverer. By the time Scheibl had ascertained that the beetle was indeed a new species never described before, Germany was celebrating its new chancellor Adolph Hitler. As Hitler's ardent admirer, School dismissed the first version of the beetle's name, labelling it Anophthalmus Hitleri. He then informed Hitler's office in Berlin about "his" finding and the name he had given it. Today, the holotype - the specimen used as the basis for the original description of a species - of the Anophthalmus Hitleri is kept in a Basel museum in Switzerland.

Article: Slovenia News