Henry Rollings, of Black Flag and general badassery fame, has made a solid reputation for himself over the years. Now his reputation expands beyond the realm of music and into the world of zoology, weirdly enough. According to Loudwire, Rollins' name will forever appear in the binomial nomenclature of a new breed of fireworms aptly titled Rollinschaeta myoplena.
Here's what Bristol PhD student Luke Parry, who commented on the discovery, said to phys.org.
“Fossil muscle tissue is rare and usually not described in any detail by paleontologists, but our discovery highlights that soft tissues preserved in fossils can offer details approaching what we can observe in living organisms. When choosing a name for our muscly beast, we decided to honor Henry Rollins, the legendary, muscular frontman of LA punk band Black Flag.”
It actually gets better, though! Dr. Jakob Vinther, Bristol’s School of Earth Sciences, had this to say about the naming, albeit a lot more colorfully.
“While carrying out the research, we informally referred to the creature as ‘the muscle worm’ due to its preservation in almost pure muscle. Part of the reason why it’s preserved so well by muscle is that it was, in real life, a very buff little worm.” Explaining how the worm developed such an impressive muscular build, he continued, “Fireworms are active during the daytime on coral reefs and other environments with strong currents which makes them much more muscular compared to most other bristle worms.”
So there you have it- if you work hard enough in life, someone might name a species of worm after you.
