A New Moth Species Named for Pope Leo XIV Is a Plea to Protect What We Haven’t Yet Found
Ben Sullivan
Somewhere in the naming of animals, science and theology have always made uneasy company. The Old Testament hands Adam his first job: go through every creature and give it a name. Taxonomy, in other words, is possibly the oldest human profession. Peter Huemer, a moth researcher at the Tyrolean State Museum in Innsbruck, seems to reckon it’s also one of the most urgent. His newest contribution to that ancient ledger is a small purple moth from the mountains of Crete, and he has named it, with...