--- title: Harry Potter Cockroach Wasp Insect Called Dementors description: Soul-sucking wasp gets a name from Harry Potter. canonical: https://time.com/91196/now-theres-an-insect-named-after-a-harry-potter-character/ author: Olivia B. Waxman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-05-07T19:18:29.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:09:28.615Z og:title: Meet the Insect Named After a Harry Potter Character og:description: It's a newly discovered species from Thailand og:url: https://time.com/91196/now-theres-an-insect-named-after-a-harry-potter-character/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt632ff2275a947d79/69868e46e8524b0af7602c2b/wasp.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1399 og:image:height: 787 og:image:alt: wasp og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Meet the Insect Named After a Harry Potter Character twitter:description: It's a newly discovered species from Thailand twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt632ff2275a947d79/69868e46e8524b0af7602c2b/wasp.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Now There's an Insect Named After a Harry Potter Character > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement.  by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/)  ## Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer May 7, 2014 7:18 PM UTC  PLOS One  by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/)  ## Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer May 7, 2014 7:18 PM UTC The Natural History Museum in Berlin let the public vote on a name for a newly discovered species of wasp in Southeast Asia that eats cockroaches, and the name _Ampulex dementor_ was chosen. In the Harry Potter series, “dementors” are [prison guards](http://www.scholastic.com/browse/subarticle.jsp?id=4257) that can suck out a person’s soul with just a kiss, so naming the insect after those creatures is “an allusion to the wasps’ behavior to selectively paralyze its cockroach prey,” according to a report by the researchers published in [PLOS One](http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0095068) at the end of April. Known for moving in a “typical running and jumping behavior, the red-and-black wasp stings the cockroach in one of its “neural nodes” which allows it to drag “prey in running mode into its nest, just like a zombie,” the ballot given to museum visitors said. 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