The Bruins may be struggling on the ice this season but all is not lost for Tuukka Rask. The Bruins goaltender is having another solid season between the pipes and now he’s on the receiving end of a very, um, unique honor – with his own insect species named after him.
Robert S. Copeland, an entomologist and Bruins fan who grew up in Newton, Massachusetts, has decided to name a newly discovered species of wasp discovered in East Africa after Boston’s netminder, dubbing them Thaumatodryinus tuukkaraski.
From The Boston Globe:
“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,” the authors wrote in the paper, which has been accepted and will be published in April.
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The name also fit for other reasons. The project that led to the discovery of the species was underwritten by the government of Finland, Rask’s home country. The wasp is yellowish and black, similar to the Bruins’ colors. The grasping front legs of the female have claspers that look vaguely like goalie gloves.
Rask called the honor “pretty neat” and said he would rather be stung by a million of those insects than have to continue to play goalie behind the Bruins’ putrid defense.
Alright, so maybe I made that last part up, but he was probably thinking it.
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