Animals Named After Celebrities

David Bowie has received an honor that few can claim. The man who brought you "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars", has a spider named after him.

Scientist Peter Jäger, in an effort to bring attention of the rapid rate of extinction of spiders and the destruction of their habitats, has named the Malaysian spider 'heteropoda davidbowie'.


Look at this.... While trying to get more information about the David Bowie spider, I found this! In 2007, scientist Jason Bond from North Carolina found a new spider and named it 'myrmekiaphila neilyoungi', after Neil Young.

Wow! Apparently there's a huge list of animals and insects that have been named after celebrities and musicians.... Here's a link to the list.... List Of Animals Named After Celebrities. Yeah, I know it's a Wikipedia list, but most of the animals are noted in scientific journals and on respected science web sites if you look for them on Google.

The list includes a woolly lemur named after John Cleese (avahi cleesei), a snail named after Boris Becker (bufonaria borisbeckeri), a roach named after Jerry Garcia (cryptocercus garciai), an ant named after Harrison Ford (calponi harrisonfordi), and a jellyfish named after Frank Zappa (phiallela zappai). Also, each of the Ramones have a trilobite named after them!

My favorite is the wasp named after an Elvis' song, the 'Preseucolia imallshookupis'.

If you discovered a species, what would you name it? I would have to go with something historically bad.... Like naming the animal after Kevin Federline or Jon Gosselin.... Ooooooh.... Or something historically good, like naming the animal after Katharine McPhee or Christina Hendricks!