A new species of shrimp discovered in Oxford has been named after Pink Floyd.
The Synalpheus pinkfloydi, named for the band who reached the peak of their fame in the 1970s, was discovered by a team comprising Sammy de Grave of the University’s Natural History Museum, as well as Dr Arthur Anker from UFG, Goais, Brazil, as lead author, and Professor Kristin Hultgren of Seattle University as the contributing geneticist.
De Grave told Cherwell that the naming was logical, as a “reference to the pink claw,” though he was quick to add that the “the noise it makes… was exaggerated by the media”.
On the shrimp’s character, de Grave said: “It’s a pretty small species (1-2 cm), so the snap certainly will not kill or stun a fish.”
De Grave has something of a reputation for his out-of-the-box names for the species he helps to discover, once naming a new shrimp after the lead singer of the Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger.
Asked about the aptness of this name, de Grave said: “The genus [was] characterised by an enlarged male appendix, and we continued the sexual innuendo by naming [it] E.jaggeri, specifically in reference to the Rolling Stones song ‘I Can’t Get No Satisfaction’.”
