A species of moth discovered in the southern Appalachian Mountains in the 1950s was finally named by researchers to honor the Cherokee Nation.
The discovery was published as a paper in the journal Zookeys.
The new species was given the name Cherokeea attakullakulla, according to the paper.
The moth was originally discovered by Dr. John G. Franclemont of Cornell University in 1953 while examining the insects collected at the Highlands Biological Station, Macon County, North Carolina.
"The moth named to honor the Cherokee Nation, whose members were exemplary stewards of the habitats and resources of the region, and also to honor one of their most revered leaders, Chief Attakullakulla, who in 1730 travelled to London and throughout the Carolinas to represent his peoples in the negotiation of various treaties," according to the paper.
Retired biologist Dr. J. Bolling Sullivan III, who formerly worked with the Duke University Marine Lab in Beaufort, North Carolina, ran into a big population of the same insect during biological inventories in the mountainous location.
It was then that the species was finally identified as a new species. Next, they gave the new species a name some 50 years after it was discovered.
Sullivan and retired entomologist Eric Quinter, from the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, were able to highlight the presence of two dozen new species of moths and butterflies, according to the paper.
"Fortunately, today much of this wondrous place and its extraordinarily diverse biota remains preserved as the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and the memory of those who first settled there remains immortalized in a tiny creature oblivious to it all." said Dr. Eric Quinter, according to the paper.
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