Henry Rollins Has a Worm Named After Him

There’s a rule in science that says if you discover a new species, you get to name it as long as you use the standard Latin nomenclature rules in doing so. For example, there are a bunch of ancient trilobytes names after members of the Rolling Stones while a wasp carries a name based on Pink Floyd. (There’s a comprehensive list of cool names here.)

The newest species to get a celebrity name is a worm found in a fossil by sciences at the University of Bristol and the Natural History Museum in London. Say hello to Rollinschaeta myopena.

So why name a worm after Henry Rollins? Because of its muscular structure. From Dangerous Minds.

According to Greg Edgecombe of the Natural History Museum, (the co-author of the study) this was the first time that “any fossil has been identified by its muscle anatomy.” Sadly, the Rollinschaeta is extinct so we can’t all run out and start a new hardcore punk rock worm colony in our basements.

Read more here.