We still name some animals according to their appearance, with a little poetic license thrown in for good measure. The tiniest and most pastel of the armored mammals is the pink fairy armadillo. As advertised, the star-nosed mole has a burst of delicate sensory tendrils on the tip of its snout. Osexax mucofloris is an unappealing worm who lives off the bones of dead whales, which would explain its name “bone-eating snot-flower.” A bacterium that was taken to the international space station and exposed to cosmic radiation earned the Latin name for “traveler of the void.” Central and Eastern areas of the US boast a salamander species that can grow to a whopping two and a half feet long called the hellbender. The internet’s favorite ichthus, which can’t maintain its body shape out of water and collapses into a rather dour-looking puddle, is the blob fish.
Even with the Linnaean taxonomy in place, we still call some animals things that they simply are not. We all know that a seahorse isn’t a horse and koala bears aren’t bears, but most people don’t realize that a jackrabbit isn’t a rabbit but a hare. Both animals come from the Leporidae family, but part ways when it comes to genus. Hares tend to live alone and not in burrows, and their young are born sighted with full coats of fur. Jackrabbits get their name from have exceptionally long ears, like a donkey or jackass. If you have ever found yourself watching Go! Diego, Go! after your preschooler has left the room, you’ve probably seen the lanky maned wolf. It should come as no surprise that this awkward-looking creature isn’t from the genus Canis, like gray wolves, jackals, and dogs, but has the genus Chrysocyon all to itself. Red pandas are pandas, but giant pandas are not. Take a moment with that one. The adorable raccoon-like Ailurus fulgens were the first to be called “panda,” which is believed to derive from the Nepali word ponya. When the black and white Ailuropoda melanoleuca were discovered later, it was assumed that the two species were related, so they were dubbed “giant pandas.” They are from the family Ursidae, which includes all bears, but the giant panda is the only living species in its genus. What Americans call a buffalo is actually a bison by genus, whereas the cape buffalo from Africa and the water buffalo from Asia are not even in the same genus as each other.
The slimy hellbender.
Never let it be said that scientists have no sense of humor. Slime mold is the primary food for a beetle discovered in 2004, so their genus was labeled Gelae, pronounced “jelly.” The species are Gelae baen, Gelae belae, Gelae donut, Gelae fish, and Gelae rol. There are beetles of the Agra genus named Agra phobia and Agra vation. There’s a wasp whose genus is Heerz and species is lukenatcha. A species of tiny mollusk is called ittibitium, a parrot is named Vini vidivici, a water beetle is Ytu brutus, a syrphid fly is called Ohmyia omya, and there is the Pacific island snail Ba humbugi.
Scientists are more than the stereotype of stuffy old men in thick glasses and lab coats, poring over dry data sets. They’re people, with interests and hobbies outside their work. When arachnologist Peter Jager discovered a new species of spider in Malaysia that was covered with flamboyant red, orange, and yellow hair, he could think of no better name than Heteropoda davidbowie. A frog, two types of flies, and an isopod found near Zanzibar have been named after Freddie Mercury. A species of horsefly with a conspicuous hind end was name Scaptia beyonceae. Likewise, a mustache-shaped pattern on a Cameroonian spider earned it the name Pachygnatha zappa, after rock legend Frank Zappa. The pistol shrimp Synalpheaus pinkfloydi makes a noise louder than a rock concert at over two hundred decibels, simply by snapping its one oversized claw shut. The gall wasps have left the building, at least if they are the variety Preseucoila imallshookupis. The wasp Metallichneumon neurospastarchus’s genus honors the band Metallica while its species, neurospastarchus, Greek for “master of puppets,” alludes to the weak and mindless nature of its hosts.
The pistol shrimp.
Actors get naming nods, too. Dominic Monaghan has a one-centimeter ginger spider named for him, Ctenus monaghani, after it was discovered during the filming of the nature documentary he hosted, Wild Things. After “shamelessly begging on national television” to have something named after him, late-night host and satirist, Stephen Colbert became namesake to a dune-dwelling spider in Southern California, Aptostichus stephencolberti. A fluffy lemur on the island of Madagascar shares its name with fierce creature and Monty Python John Cleese, Avahi cleesei. The hosts of Top Gear each have a wasp in the genus Kerevata named after them: clarksoni, hammondi, and jamesmayi.
Former First Lady of Argentina and well-traveled corpse Eva Peron has a moth named for her whose scientific name is simply evita. A single genus of fish honors Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, and Teddy Roosevelt. The neck plate of a leaf-dwelling Madagascan praying mantis earned it the name Ilomantis ginsburgae, in honor of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Sirindhorn, the second daughter of the monarch of Thailand, commonly referred to as “princess angel” has been honored with a number of plants, several crustaceans, a butterfly, a bee, and a prehistoric tarsier. Similarly, Barack Obama’s name was stamped on several spider species, a few different fish, a blood fluke, bird, lichen, beetle, extinct reptile, horsehair worm, and a bee. He and wife Michelle were dually honored with the fish Teleogramma obamaorum.
Terry Pratchett, whose Discworld books described the world as resting on the back of a giant turtle, is the namesake of the turtle species Psephophorus terrypratchetti. Shakespeare has a wasp named for him, while Henry David Thoreau has two. The author of Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift, is the namesake of a fly that’s naturally quite tiny, while Herman Melville’s name was given to a whale. Gene Roddenberry has a true bug, Arthur C. Clarke has a dinosaur, Neil Gaiman has a beetle, and H.P. Lovecraft has a wasp. An extinct crab was named for Ray Harryhausen, the man who brought stop-motion movie monsters to life. J. R. R. Tolkien has gotten a great deal of scientific love, in the form of a beetle, a crustacean, two wasps, and a clam. In addition to the false-headed moth Erechthias beeblebroxi, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy author Douglas Adams has an ant named for himself and a triple-finned fish named after a character, Fiordichthys slartibartfasti.
Jonathan Swift, the author, not the fly.
It should go without saying that there is great overlap between the lovers of science and the lovers of science fiction and all things geeky. Tolkien appears again with a shark named for Gollum, a cyclopic shark named for Sauron, an ancient croc called balrogus, and an entire genus of cordylid lizards name Smaug. A tiny armored catfish from South America was christened Otocinclus batmani; no word on if it fights crime at night. Harry Potter fans will want to steer clear of the Ampulex dementor wasp, which turns cockroaches into zombies. Science has given us Spongiforma squarepantsii, but it’s not a sponge, it’s a highly porous mushroom. A trilobite that reminded the discoverer of the faces of the two old curmudgeons in the Muppet Theater box was dubbed Geragnostus waldorfstatleri. A newly discovered genus of wasp has each of its species named for a different house in Game of Thrones: Laelius arryni, baratheoni, lannisteri, martelli, targaryeni, tullyi, and starki.
Scientists not only honored cartoonist Gary Larson with the scientific name of a chewing louse that feeds on owls, they also borrowed a name from him. A 1982 Far Side cartoon showed a caveman leading a lecture on the dangers of dinosaurs, pointing to a slide of a stegosaurus’s spiked tail and saying, “Now this end is called the thagomizer, after the late Thag Simmons.”