BEIJING — Under a microscope, the tiny beetle named in honor of China’s president, Xi Jinping, looks fierce, with black, armorlike ridges and beaded antennae.

Yet more important to Cheng-Bin Wang, the Prague-based Chinese entomologist who discovered and named it, the Rhyzodiastes (Temoana) xii eats rotten wood. That makes it a fitting symbol for Mr. Xi, whose campaign against official corruption is as important for China as the beetle’s diet is for the health of its environment, Mr. Wang said in a telephone interview.

“President Xi is the same. He is fighting corruption. That is so important,” said Mr. Wang, 32, who added that his discovery last year excited him so much he could not sleep at night. He not only named it for Mr. Xi but added the word “wolf” in Chinese, for good measure: 习氏狼条脊甲 — literally, “Xi Surnamed Wolf Spine Carapace.” (The last words indicate a beetle, which has a hard carapace, unlike the cockroach.)

Mr. Wang’s taxonomic gesture seems to have irritated China’s vigilant propaganda bosses, who have moved fast to block references to the “Xi beetle” from China’s heavily censored internet. Searches for the beetle’s name on Tuesday failed to return results. A Weibo search for the name in Chinese showed the message that “due to relevant laws and policies, results for ‘Xi Surnamed Wolf Spine Carapace’ cannot be shown.”