Scientists like their rock ’n’ roll, they can classify things but they also can show they have some taste in music, believing the number of living species that have undergone the rock star treatment.
Some scientists are really old school and like the good old standards, but it is weird than Elvis Presley has inspired a name for an Antarctic dinosaur (Elvisaurus Holmes, so called for its ‘pompadour-like’ crest) or a wasp Preseucoila imallshookupis (after his song ‘All shook up’). There is also a mite named after the king of funk James Brown, Funkotriplogynium iagobadius (iago is James and badius is brown in Latin), a beetle Orectochilus orbisonorum, named after Roy Orbison because of its tuxedo-like elegant appearance.
Oh and so many trilobites (some sort of marine crabs which disappeared 250 million years ago) are named after rock stars! There are Milesdavis Lieberman, named after Miles Davis of course, Mackenziurus johnnyi, Mackenziurus. joeyi, Mackenziurus deedeei, Mackenziurus ceejayi named after the Ramones, Avalanchurus simoni and Avalanchurus garfunkeli named after Simon and Garfunkel, Arcticalymene viciousi, Arcticalymene rotteni, Arcticalymene jonesi, Arcticalymene cooki, Arcticalymene matlocki named after the Sex Pistols!
The Beatles were a lot of inspiration for biologists, they have worms, one named Bushiella beatlesi Rzhavsky, another named Greeffiella beatlei Lorenzen (the shagginess of the worm looks like a Beatles haircut), and again, a few fossil crabs: Avalanchurus lennoni, Avalanchurus starri, and Struszia mccartneyi named after Lennon, Starr, and McCartney.
The Rolling Stones have Aegrotocatellus jaggeri (another fossil crab) and Anomphalus jaggerius Plas (fossil snail) named after Mick Jagger of course, and Perirehaedulus richardsi (fossil crab again!) named after Keith Richards
Frank Zappa is loved by biologists since he has a fish (Zappa confluentus), a fossil snail (Amaurotoma zappa), a worm (Oenonites zappae), a spider (Pachygnatha zappa) with black marks under its abdomen similar to Zappa’s mustache, and a jellyfish (Phialella zappai Boero) named after him.
Classic rock is always a sure thing, so a few critters got big stars’ names: Neil Young got the spider Myrmekiaphila neilyoung, Jerry Garcia got the wood roach Cryptocercus garciai (because according to the authors ‘What a long strange trip its been’) as well as the fly Dicrotendipes thanatogratus Epler (thanatos is dead, and gratus is grateful in Latin!) and David Bowie got the spider Heteropoda davidbowie.
The list never ends as the crustaceans Cirolana mercuryi and Vunicothoe Boyko were respectively named after Freddy Mercury and The Velvet Underground and Nico.
Rare are the flowers named after rock star but there is the gentian Macrocarpaea dies-viridis (dies is day and viridis green in Latin),… well yes, to honor Green Day
But biologists are also into Metal! And the wasp Metallichneumon neurospastarchus (means ‘Master of Puppets’ in Latin) was named after Metallica because the larva eats the inside of its host insect, and the marine worm Kalloprion kilmisteri was named after Lemmy Kilmister of Motörhead.
Some rock stars can literally be qualified of Dinosaurs, like Mark Knofler whose name inspired Masiakasaurus knopfleri, because more bones of the dinosaur were discovered when Dire Strait’s songs was played.
But biologists don’t always have the best taste in music since one named a tree frog Hyla stingi Kaplan to honor Sting and his work for the rain forest, and another named a fly Villa manillae Evenhuis after Millie Vanillie!
But my favorite one is a little bit different, it is only a nickname for a famous female hominid fossil Australopithecus afarensis. They named her Lucy after ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ (a song they had on repeat during the discovery) and the fossil is known all over the world under this moniker.
It’s well-known, scientists have always wanted to be rock stars.