Paleontologists sometimes name scientific discoveries after bands or musicians. Yes, researchers can be fans, too! Since 2013, an exhibition called “Rock Fossils” has been touring Northern European museums that focuses on some of these uniquely named fossils. I went to the exhibition in Frankfurt, Germany. It’s small, but very well curated, and I learned a lot. I had a fun afternoon walking through the exhibition, where I was marveling at the weird and stunning reconstructions of these creatures that lived hundreds of millions of years ago.
Incidentally, I came across a fossilized Jurassic sea urchin, which was named after Swiss folk metal band Eluveitie: Paracidaris eluveitie. In 2015, Eluveitie received a copy of the fossil and played a show at the Natural History Museum Bern, Switzerland, for their Rock Fossils tour stop. If you understand Swiss German, I recommend this short clip with the one of the paleontologists who discovered the fossil. Cool stuff!
