Newly Discovered Snail Named After Joe Strummer of The Clash
Posted on December 15, 2014
A newly discovered deep sea snail species has been named after Joe Strummer, the lead singer and guitarist from The Clash. The snail was one of five new species named in a paper published in Systematics and Biodiversity.
The newly discovered deep sea snails live around hydrothermal vents in the Western Pacific and Indian oceans. The snail named after Joe Strummer has a colorful and very spiky shell. It is named Alviniconcha strummeri.
Shannon Johnson, a researcher at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and lead author of the study, told the Santa Cruz Sentinel that the look of the colorful spiked snail shells helped them come up with the name. Johnson says, "Because they look like punk rockers in the 70s and 80s and they have purple blood and live in such an extreme environment, we decided to name one new species after a punk rock icon."
Johnson also discussed with the Santa Cruz Sentinel about why scientists sometimes use celebrity names when naming creatures. She gives a good reason for scientists doing this. She says, "This gets people excited about science. Otherwise, people might not see these snails."
It does help get the snails broader coverage in the national news than they normally would. The research paper can be found online here.
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