ONE OF thirteen fluorescent species of cockroach, Blaberidae, which live in South America, has been baptised with an unusual name, Lucihormetica luckae. The name is derived from the name of the daughter of Peter Vršanský, who discovered the species. His daughter is called Lucka. Vršanský discovered the new species towards the end of 2010 in Ecuador following the eruption of a volcano. In 2012, together with colleagues from several institutes of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Vršanský described the discovery in the magazine Naturwissenschaften.
Their discovery was cited as one of the top 10 biological discoveries of 2012, as chosen from among 18,000 new species of plants, animals and microbes, the Sme daily wrote at the end of May. The International Institute for Species Exploration (IISE), a research institute of Arizona State University that charts such discoveries says many species remain undiscovered, but warns that many of them will not survive until the end of this century.
