The B's Tuukka Rask Has Become a Wasp

A Newton native, and apparently huge hockey fan, recently named a new species of wasp after the Bruins’s goaltender Tuukka Rask.

Robert Copeland, an entomologist who helped discover the new wasp, grew up in Newton. Although the scientist has been living in Africa for the past 25 years, he can’t give up his New England spirit and told The Boston Globe that he still follows the Bruins.

He named the ferocious-looking new wasp species Thaumatodryinus tuukkaraski in honor of Rask.

• Tell us in the comments: If you discovered a new insect, what would you name it?

But it wasn’t just Copeland’s love for the Bruins that determined his choice for the new wasp’s name.

Copeland and other authors of the paper wrote, “This species is named after the acrobatic goaltender for the Finnish National ice hockey team and the Boston Bruins, whose glove hand is as tenacious as the raptorial fore tarsus of this dryinid species,” according to The NHL.

The project that led to the wasp’s discovery was also funded by the government of Finland, Rask’s native country.

Rask said his new namesake is “pretty neat” and thought it was fitting because the Bruins are often nicknamed “The B’s.”

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Image via Wikimedia