Nutty Nomenclature
All species of organism are given their own specific name by the taxonomist who first describes them. Every now and again the taxonomists allow themselves to have a little bit of fun. This is our guide to some more mischievously named species.
Name: Avalanchurus lennoni, A. starri, A. simoni and A. garfunkeli
Don’t get it? You should listen to more seminal sixties music.
What are they? Trilobites - ancient tank-like arthropods that roamed the prehistoric seas about 425 million years ago.
Where were they found? In the sea. A long time ago.
When were they first named? 1993 & 1997.
Who deserves the credit? Greg Edgecombe and Brian Chatterton - an aussie-canadian duo of palaeontologists named the Beatles species and Edgecombe teamed up with Jonathan Adrain to name the Simon and Garfunkelers.
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Is there a picture? Sadly no pictures of those species named after John, Ringo, Paul and Art. Just in case you were worrying, two species were named after the other beatles, but in a different genus. Struszia mccartneyi and S. harrisoni were named at the same time as the others. We don't have any pictures of them either. The image to the right simply a groovy looking trilobite.Check out some other weird species names here.
Null's other regular features:
Monday: Phunny Phobias
Wednesday: Doctor Doctor
Thursday: Peculiar Periodicals
Friday: End of week timewasters
Title image: Kevin Walsh
Main image: Peter Halasz/W
Main image: Peter Halasz/W
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