No, it's not a fire-breathing bee, but it's what you get when a Pokémon fan is a scientist.
Spencer K. Monckton is currently a PhD student at the University of Guelph in Canada. When he was taking his Biology Master's degree at the York University, he discovered eight new species of bees, one of which he named the Chilicola charizard or the stem-nesting Charizard.
Getting to name a species is a perk when you discover one and Monckton used this opportunity to show his love for Pokémon.
"I played the game pretty much from when it was released and I picked Charmander when I first started the game," he said.
In the game, Charmander evolves into Charmeleon, which then evolves into Charizard.
While Monckton could have named the bee species he discovered just because he could, he actually has a logical reason behind the name: the bee has a long snout and an orange hue.
The stem-nesting Charizard belongs to a subgenus of bees that has 17 species all endemic to various parts of Chile.
In a study published in ZooKeys, Monckton described the bee species he discovered, including the stem-nesting Charizard, noting the tiny creatures typically measure 4 to 7 mm (0.16 to 0.28 inch) long. And where the stem-nesting Charizard has orange markings, others discovered by Monckton feature yellow hues. However, the yellow markings can also turn orange when a specimen is preserved, which is actually how Monckton made comparisons for his research.
He also detailed a way to make it easier to tell apart the males from the females of the bee species in the study.
The stem-nesting Charizard and Monckton's other bee discoveries are polyester bees. They are called as such because they produce secretions that dry into a smooth and cellophane-like material when applied to the walls of nest cells.
The bees are solitary so while they can be found all over Chile — from moist forests to arid deserts and coastal areas to thousands of feet above sea level — they don't nest in groups in the hollows of plant stems.
As someone who actively seeks out organisms to group and classify, Monckton is a lot like a real-life Pokémon trainer filling up his Pokédex. He now has a Charizard, but what's next? Maybe he can play Pokémon GO for now, whiling the days away catching virtual Pokémon while making his way to his next discovery.
