--- 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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It curates the day's top headlines with TIME's reporting and analysis across politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is free to join at time.com/newsletters. #### How do I sign up for The Brief? The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=f26b2b79-871d-4f38-b133-65d0104fb3cf&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1)  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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