Name Your Own Biology Finds - Fun with Biology!

[BillTre]

A nice thing about biology is that you might get to name things, which can have entertaining results.

A recently described ankylosaur was named Zuul (after a ghostbuster monster) crurivastator (~ destroyer of shins).

 

[Ygggdrasil]

Biologists who work with Drosophila have way too much fun with naming. For example:

julius seizure, a Drosophila Mutant, Defines a Neuronal Population Underlying Epileptogenesis
http://www.genetics.org/content/early/2017/01/10/genetics.116.199083

 

[jim mcnamara]

In a different direction and only marginally scientific -
Gary Larson the author of the cartoon 'The Far Side' portrayed animals as smarter than humans. He hoped he would be have his name associated with some beautiful animal or plant. A research arthropod taxonomist obliged:
Strigiphilus garylorsonii

Spoiler

This is a biting louse found only on owls.

Larson shows up in science in other ways. The scientifically correct term for the large tail spikes (processes) of Stegosaurs is: thagomizer.

Origin of the use:
Larson had a cartoon showing a cave man doing a talk on the late Thag Simmons, killed by a thagomizer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thagomizer See the cartoon halfway down.

Ken Carpenter of Denver Museum used the term in lectures. Horner (Jack Horner, paleontologist at the Museum of the Rockies retired, loved that cartoon strip. So, since there was no name for the bony tail process, he started using the term thagomizer in published papers. It caught on, big time.

Here is a link to taxonomy run amok - the names of famous people officially part of taxonomy -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organisms_named_after_famous_people

 

[BillTre]

I like the list idea @jim mcnamara,
Here is a list of some more fly mutants (older than @Ygggdrasil's).
And this one has both fly and zebrafish mutants.