Media release

From: Queensland Museum

A new species of mite has been described by Queensland Museum scientists and named after the owl Hedwig from the Harry Potter franchise.

“The mite was found on a beetle named Figulus which, in Latin, means a potter. So, as this mite is like a little pet of a Potter, I named it Hedwig,” Queensland Museum Collection Manager Arachnology Dr Owen Seeman said.

In an interesting twist, the scientific name has no gender attached to it as the owl was referred to as a female in the book series and portrayed by a male owl in the movies.

“Perhaps more subtly, and naughtily, the name has no gender, it’s a slight bit of good-natured fun to make hedwig genderless,” Dr Seeman said.

The paper was recently published in The Australian Entomologist.

Seeman, O.D. (2023) Paraschizogynium hedwig sp. n., Australia’s first species of Schizogyniidae (Parasitiformes: Celaenopsoidea). The Australian Entomologist 50 (3): 221-236.