An East Carolina University biologist has brought his admiration of Neil Young into a class of its own.
Or species, to be exact.
Jason Bond, an ECU professor of biology, has named a newly discovered trapdoor spider, Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi, after the legendary rock star.
“There are rather strict rules about how you name new species,” Bond said. “As long as these rules are followed you can give a new species just about any name you please. With regards to Neil Young, I really enjoy his music and have had a great appreciation of him as an activist for peace and justice.”
In 2007, Bond discovered the new spider species in Jefferson Co., Alabama, and later co-wrote a paper with Norman I. Platnick, curator at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, on the genus.
Bond received $750,000 in grants from the National Science Foundation in 2005 and 2006 to classify the trapdoor spider species and contribute to the foundation’s Tree of Life project. He is both a spider systematist – someone who studies organisms and how they are classified – and taxonomist – someone who classifies new species.
Spiders in the trapdoor genus are distinguished on the basis of differences in genitalia, Bond said, from one species to the next. He confirmed through the spider’s DNA that the Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi is an identifiable, separate species of spider within the trapdoor genus.
9 users commented in " Spider named after Neil Young "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackFantastic - Im going to discover a new species of sheep and call it Ovis aries robertplanties.
Why a sheep?
Why not? What have you got against hard-rockin sheep, Doc?
You do know that the name “Rachel” is the hebrew name for a ewe or female sheep?
Why then does a sheep need another name?
It also appears to me that you are not naming a species of sheep after Mr Plant, only a subspecies of sheep. Is there a particular subspecies of sheep that warrants this moniker?
Well, they haven’t been discovered yet so I’m not sure… but a man can dream, can’t he?
Sometimes all we have are dreams. My pappy used to say to me “Dream son,sometimes dreams become real and sometimes they don’t become real, but you’ve got to dream”. Then he would take out his ol harmonica and play the dream sequence from Swan Lake.
$750,000 of the taxpayers’ money and we have a spider named for Neil Young.
Well, I do see a resemblance.
Good lord, he’s a freakishly X-Files looking singer.
RTS, I’m sure you would agree it is cheap at twice the price.
FMC: I guess I did choose this photo on the basis of spider-likeness, rather than picking a more usual photo. However, I do think this is a fine specimen of a man to use as the source for a spider’s name.