I see some people speculating it could be due to copyright reasons. For example, Disney has a Scuttle character - and is pretty protective over their IP. Even if such a lawsuit would go nowhere, I doubt FR has the money or time to want to risk it.

What warranted them to change it at this exact time, though, who knows. (And it could just be because they wanted a more unique/older sounding name for it ala Gaolers, but we have plenty of normal/modenrish names for genes, so… seems odd to pick this one for no reason and out of nowhere. Though it could be indicative of a potential gene port coming?)