Here ’s one that ’s sure to make philosophers groan ( or sorcerers , for you Americans ) . A recently discovered crabmeat species has been more or less tenuously named in honor of characters from the witching world ofHarry Potter .
The Cancer the Crab ’s official name isHarryplax severus , with the genusHarryplaxnamed after the Cancer ’s accumulator , the late researcher and former shipboard soldier Harry Conley , who croak from a gunfire in 2002 , as well as the protagonist in J. K. Rowling ’s novels . Conley labor up many specimen in Guam ’s coral Rand rubble almost 20 yr ago .
The latter species part of its name is inspired by the character Severus Snape , who ( despoiler word of advice ) , “ despite being a central character reference in the serial publication , keeps his background and agenda mystifying until the very end , ” thestatementannouncing the naming said . The authors remark this is " just like the present raw species , which has eluded discovery until now , nearly 20 twelvemonth after it was first collected ” .
Even though Conley found the specimen long ago , its condition as a new coinage and genus was only realized lately by Dr Peter Ng and Dr Jose Cristopher E. Mendoza from the National University of Singapore .
Jose Christopher E. Mendoza
The crab is petite , measuring just 7.9 by 5.6 millimeter ( 0.3 by 0.2 inches ) , and know only to herald from the island of Guam . It ’s found deep in coral junk or under subtidal rocks , and hold out at dark depth with reduce eyes , ones that are not used extensively . rather , it has antenna to probe the depths , and produce around on long thin legs .
In the financial statement , Dr Mendoza was allege to be a ego - confessed “ Potterhead ” , hence the somewhat strange soubriquet . But it ’s not the first timePotterhas inspire the naming of a new metal money – Popular Sciencenotes that a dinosaur species was list after Hogwarts in 2006 ( Dracorex hogwartsia ) , a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant in Thailand was namedAmpulex dementorin 2014 , and a spider was namedEriovixia gryffindorilast year .
A report delineate the finding was bring out inZooKeys , but unhappily the Potter references end there . You wo n’t be getting Crabbe and Goyle , x - shelliarmus , or Albus Dumbleclaw out of us . No siree .
