Elton John Inspires the Name of a New Marine Species

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Credit: Dr. James ThomasElton John‘s outrageous outfits have become legendary, and now one of them has inspired the name of a newly discovered species of crustacean, according to Phys.org.

While exploring the remote coral reefs of Raja Ampat in Indonesia, Dr. James Thomas from the Halmos College of Natural Sciences and Oceanography in Florida and his colleagues from Naturalis Natural History museum in the Netherlands discovered the tiny crustacean, which lives inside another reef dweller.

Thomas, it turns out, is a big fan of the 68-year-old singer, songwriter and pianist, and he named the amphipod Leucothoe eltoni for its unusual shape, which reminded him of a famous outfit John wore in the 1975 film adaptation of The Who rock opera Tommy.

As Thomas explained in his scientific paper about the crustacean, its name was “in reference to the large shoe-like first gnathopod [a clawlike appendage] of this species and the oversize boots Elton John wore as the local pinball champion in the movie Tommy.”

Thomas’ paper on the species was published in the journal ZooKeys.

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