Entomologists have discovered 24 new species of wasps that mummify caterpillars, several were named after famous people including Jimmy Fallon, John Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Ellen DeGeneres, as well as the Ecuadorian artist Eduardo Kingman, American poet Robert Frost, and Colombian singer and musician, Shakira.

The 24 new species belong to a very large wasp genus with more than 600 wasp species, Aleiodes: A. albidactyl, A. albigena, A. albiviria, A. bimaculatus, A. cacuangoi, A. colberti, A. delicatus, A. dyeri, A. elleni, A. falloni, A. frosti, A. kingmani, A. longikeros, A. luteosicarius, A. marilynae, A. mirandae, A. napo, A. nubicola, A. onyx, A. shakirae, A. stewarti, A. townsendi, A. tzantza and A. yanayacu.

These wasps are parasites of forest caterpillars. The female wasps search for a particular kind of caterpillar, and inject an egg into it. Parasitism by the wasp does not immediately kill the caterpillar, but it continues to feed and grow for a time. Eventually, feeding by the wasp larva causes the host caterpillar to shrink and mummify, then the immature wasp makes its cocoon inside the mummified remains of its conquered prey.

“These wasps are very small organisms, being only 4 to 9 mm long, but they have an enormous impact on forest ecology,” said Prof Scott Shaw from the University of Wyoming, Laramie, the second author of a paper published in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

Aleiodes shakirae, or the Shakira wasp, causes its host caterpillar to bend and twist in an unusual way, which reminded the entomologists of belly-dancing, for which the South American performer is also famous.

“Killing and mummifying caterpillars may sound bad, but these are actually highly beneficial insects. These wasps are helping to naturally control the populations of plant-feeding caterpillars, so they help to sustain the biodiversity of tropical forests,” Prof Shaw said.

The field research was conducted by Prof Shaw and his colleague, Dr Eduardo Mitio Shimbori from the Universidade Federal de São Carlos in Brazil, at the Yanayacu cloud forest research station of Napo Province in the eastern Andes slopes of Ecuador.

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Shimbori EM, Shaw SR. 2014. Twenty-four new species of Aleiodes Wesmael from the eastern Andes of Ecuador with associated biological information (Hymenoptera, Braconidae, Rogadinae). ZooKeys 405: 1–81; doi: 10.3897/zookeys.405.7402