There are a number of creatures on planet earth named after Star Wars characters and actors, and the latest to join that illustrious list is Stormtropis, a member of the bald-legged spider family native to South and Central America named after the Stormtrooper.
Live Science takes a look at these creepy crawlies.
Like the Stormtroopers, the spiders “are very similar to each other, with some capacity for camouflage”; the sci-fi soldiers and the newfound spiders are also alike in being somewhat clumsy, according to the study. However, there is no evidence (yet) that the spiders, like their movie namesakes, are terrible at hitting moving targets with a blaster.
Stormtroopers are a common sight across the Empire’s conquered worlds in the “Star Wars” universe, and Colombia’s bald-legged spiders turned out to be surprisingly numerous, too. Though the arachnids had never been reported in that country before, the study authors described two species in two previously known genera — Paratropis, Anisaspis — and four in the newfound Stormtropis genus. All the newly described species were scattered across a diverse range of habitats in Colombia.