Carmenelectra

Carmenelectra is an extinct genus of fly belonging to the family Mythicomyiidae and containing a single species Carmenelectra shechisme.

Carmenelectra shechisme
Temporal range: Eocene
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Arthropoda
Class:
Insecta
Order:
Diptera
Family:
Mythicomyiidae
Genus:
†Carmenelectra

Evenhuis, 2002
Species:
†C. shechisme
Binomial name
Carmenelectra shechisme
Evenhuis, 2002

Fossil records

Carmenelectra is known from a Tertiary fossil discovered preserved in Baltic amber. The fly was very small, with size of 1–3 mm (0.04–0.12 in). Fossils of the family Mythicomyiidae are relatively rare, with those preserved in amber even harder to find. The reason for the scarceness of the fossil material is presumed to be the humidity of the Baltic region during the Tertiary, which made the region unsuited to the aridity-loving mythicomyiids.[1]

Etymology

In 2002, the species was named after the model and actress Carmen Electra by Neal Evenhuis, former president of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature and senior entomologist at the Hawaii Biological Survey. Evenhuis attempted to contact the model to inform her about the naming of Carmenelectra shechisme, but his efforts were unsuccessful. In 2008, he said: "The offer's still good. I'll be willing to meet her."[2] Names of species discovered in amber (such as the genus Electromyrmococcus) often contain the prefix electro- (ἤλεκτρον (elektron) meaning "amber" in Greek). The species epithet is reminiscent of the Victorian entomologist George Willis Kirkaldy's alleged practice of commemorating his romantic conquests with names of women. The official description of the species says: "The genus-group name is named for television, film, and magazine personality, Carmen Elektra [sic]. Both namesakes exemplify splendid somal structure for their respective taxa. The species-group epithet is an arbitrary combination of letters."[3]

gollark: It's part of a more complex system, but basically:- Lasers (from Plethora) were on ComputerCraft turtles (robot things), which could fire them in arbitrary directions- The turtles ran a program which connected to a relay-type service I run on my web server, which let them receive commands like "fire at this position" or "fire in this direction"- That relay service passed commands from clients to turtles and the results back to said clients- The Python script connected to the MC server's dynmap (popular service for web maps for Minecraft servers) web API, which, among other things, provides positions of players, and sent commands to fire at the reported position of players.
gollark: Which aren't particularly big, but somewhat useful.
gollark: I have random Python scripts for things I wanted to do at some point which computers could do more easily than I could, like a̦̾̋p͍̫̿p͊̃̇l̜̋̓y̱ͫ̃i̴̔ͫn̲̲͡g͎͏̈́ ̯͋̿r̫͢͡a̲͜͝n̦̽̄d͈̮̤o̻̳̭ṃ̱ͦ ̼͌͠d̵̼̗ǐ̡̕ȧ̰̫ċ̔ͯr̀͠͠ì̄ͥt͓̼͌î͚̘c̞͋̀s͓̬̦ to text, controlling a bunch of laser turrets I had on a Minecraft server over the internet, bulk-converting some music to a different format, and generating beepy noises.
gollark: Putting together simple scripts or whatever to do some random task more easily.
gollark: Random bodging? It's what I do.

References
  1. Evenhuis, Neal L. (2002). "Review of the Tertiary microbombyliids (Diptera: Mythicomyiidae) in Baltic, Bitterfeld, and Dominican amber" (PDF). Zootaxa. 100: 1–15. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.100.1.1.
  2. Leber, Jessica (4 March 2008). "The latest in newly discovered species: You pay for it, you get to name it". University of Columbia. Archived from the original on 8 May 2012. Retrieved 25 January 2013.
  3. The Nabokovian, Issues 56-59. Vladimir Nabokov Society. 2006.
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