These Animals Have Absolutely Insane Names You Won't Believe Are Real

When Ellen Miller and her team found these fossils of a previously undescribed extinct species resembling a hippo, they named it Jaggermeryx naida after Rolling Stone singer Mick Jagger. It got the name because the animal had “large, sensitive lips.”

In the Star Wars prequels the Midi-chlorians were introduced as a fictional microbe that gave people the power of the force. Fans weren’t all that supportive of the choice. However, in 2006 when Nate Lo discovered a new species of bacteria that infected the ovaries of ticks, he suggested they be named after the force giving microbes.

Lady Gaga has an entire genus of ferns named after her, and one of the species in that genus is the Gaga germanotta, after Gaga’s given name of Stephanie Germonotta.

Each of the Sex Pistols, including Sid Vicious, has an extinct trilobite species named after them.

When a new dinosaur was discovered by three Italian paleontologist in 2012, they named it Sauroniops pachytholus after Sauron, the villain from “The Lord of the Rings.”

When Dr. Mats E. Eriksson of Sweden discovered the fossil of a 420 million-year-old worm with jaws, he named it after Danish metal singer King Diamond. A few years earlier he had named a worm Kalloprion Kilmisteri after Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister of MOTÖRHEAD.

When this reddish-purple worm was discovered near the seafloor, researches thought the lips on the sides of its head resembled the wise green alien from Star Wars. Yoda purpurata translates to “purple Yoda.”

After photographer Denis Riek sent marine biologist Lisa-ann Gershwin photos of a new genus of jellyfish, Gershwin named the new jellyfish Bazinga rieki after the catch phrase of Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory and the photographer who sent the images.

When the staff at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute identified five new species of deep-sea snails, they thought some that were covered in spikes reminded them of punk rockers. This led them to name one species the Alviconcha strummeri, after Joe Strummer from The Clash.

Pedro Peloso and his team found 21 specimens of a very small frog with a very big voice in the Brazilian Amazon that turned out to be a brand new species. THe team referred to the frog as the “bat frog” and that eventually became Dendropsophus ozzyi, in reference to Ozzy Osbourne who once bit the head of a bat off during a concert.

John Huber discovered a new species of fairy fly (flies so tiny the must be studied through a microscope) in Costa Rica and named it after the fairy in Peter Pan.

Microscopic termite parasites that were discovered in 2013 were named after the elder god Cthuluh and his daughter Cthylla from H.P. Lovercraft’s stories. The two new species were known as Cthulhu Macrofasciculumque (shown) and Cthylla Microfasciculumque.