I started writing a few days ago about the interesting topic of naming animals after people you like. As Carl Linnaeus did for Olaf Rudbeck, (who gave him his first job) who became a flower....Rudbeckia hirta.
before we continue here is a gratuitous and rather pleasing photo of an English starling with all his feathers fluffed out....nothing to do with this topic....
Other non-scientific people who have big egos, lots of money and want to be immortalised include Hugh Hefner, who paid a bundle to have a subspecies of marsh rabbit named after him....Sylvilagus palustris hefneri. really?? oh yes. Zappa has at least 3 creatures named after him, including a jellyfish. George W Bush and Dick Cheney as well as Darth Vader have beetles named after them. even spongebob squarepants....a smelly fungus from Malaysia. Mozart, Lennon, Mick Jagger, Sid Vicious, Buddha.....the list goes on, many inspired names, like a fossil trilobite named after Marilyn Monroe due to its hourglass- shaped glabella.
So, if you find a creature new to science, who would you name it for...and why?
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