A new species of crab has been discovered and named Tanidromites nightwishorum in honor of Nightwish.
The band has called the namecheck a “truly fantastic honor” and have even made a statement about the discovery.
The band says, “A new species of crab was named after us in particular for our 2015 album. Most beautiful infinite shapes about the evolution of life.
“The new species of crab was found in eastern Austria and lived during the latter part of the Jurassic period, about 150 million years ago. While dinosaurs dominated the land, parts of Europe were covered in a warm, shallow sea teeming with life.
Tanidromites nightwishorum was discovered in a fossil coral reef. The diversity and abundance of crabs exploited for the first time in its evolutionary history during the late Jurassic in central Europe.
“Thanks to Dr. Adiel A. Klompmaker and his colleagues for this truly fantastic honor. Adiel is a curator of paleontology at the Alabama Museum of Natural History. “
The scientific paper on the discovery has also been published, with Nightwish as the last artist to have a species named after him.
Pink Floyd has a gun shrimp in his honor, Cannibal Corpse bassist Alex Webster has an extinct monster worm named after him as “he can be considered a ‘giant’ when it comes to handling his instrument”, and the name of Lemmy is now attached to a Jurassic crocodile fossil.
Henry Rollins, meanwhile, has a fire worm named after him because he was a “muscled beast”.
Nightwish released their new studio album Human. : II: Nature at the beginning of this year.
