This Moth’s Name Is a Slur. Scientists Won’t Use It Anymore.

The Entomological Society of America will no longer refer to common species of insects as “gypsy moths” and “gypsy ants,” because their names are derogatory to the Romani people.

On Wednesday, the Entomological Society of America announced it was removing “gypsy moth” and “gypsy ant” as recognized common names for two insects. For Ethel Brooks, a Romani scholar, the move is long overdue. As a child in New Hampshire, Dr. Brooks loved watching worms and caterpillars crawl across her hand. But one particular caterpillar, the hairy larvae of the species Lymantria dispar, terrified her. The larvae would swarm and strip the leaves from a tree, leaving behind so much destruction that people sometimes called them a “plague.” But no one blamed L. dispar. Instead they blamed “gypsy moth caterpillars,” the species’ common name. “That’s how they see us,” Dr. Brooks remembered thinking as a child. “We eat things and destroy things around us.”