Photo Credits: Left is a screenshot from the Smithsonian Magazine website; Right is a screenshot from Europeana website.

When the news broke about those spongy moth caterpillars dropping from the sky, research revealed that they were the moth traditionally known as the “gypsy” moth. So is “spongy moth” a new moth? No. Thanks to an ALBB reader pointing it out, a decision was made in 2021 by the Entomological Society of America (ESA), where there was discussion about equity in naming. They announced the renaming with the launching of the organization’s Better Common Names Project, as reported by the Washington Post.

The term “gypsy” was a racially offensive term given to the The Romani people, who were enslaved in Romania for more than 500 years. According to Europeana, it is unknown how this group of people ended up in Romania, but some believe they were from India. “The main hypothesis is that they left the Punjab region of Northern India either as nomads or victims of unfavorable circumstances, such as war or natural disaster. Some theories state that the Roma population arrived in the Principality of Wallachia (the southern part of today’s Romania) as free people, but they were soon enslaved by the princes of Wallachia and Moldavia, who needed a workforce.”

As the Washington Post reports: “They were victims of persecution and genocide during the Holocaust, and the community still faces human rights abuses and marginalization. ‘Roma are dehumanized in so many ways: being associated with insects, being associated with animals,’ said Margareta Matache, director of the Roma Program at Harvard University’s FXB Center for Health and Human Rights. ‘And that is really how structural anti-Roma racism is justified.’”

The origin of the word “gypsy” came from England, who apparently mistook the Roma people to be from Egypt. A study was conducted in 2020, titled “Romani Realities In The United States: Breaking The Silence, Challenging The Stereotypes” led in part by Margareta.

They were victims of persecution and genocide during the Holocaust, and the community still faces human rights abuses and marginalization. Both the moth and the ant known as Aphaenogaster araneoides were named with the word “gypsy” in them to indicate a wandering nature.

But the person who came up with the name, Terry McGlynn, who had been studying this species for more than 20 years, wrote a blog post in 2019 titled: “Fixing a racist common name that I coined.” said it wasn’t until years later that he became aware of the implications of the name, according to the Washington Post.

According to the Smithsonian Magazine, “The new name, ‘spongy moth,’ refers to the insect’s light brown, fuzzy egg masses that resemble sponges. It stems from France’s common name for the Lymantria dispar— ‘spongieuse,’ per the ESA. Other countries like Germany and Turkey, also reference sponges in their common names for the moth.”