A newly discovered species of Tarantulas has been lovingly named Kankuamo marquezi - after Gabriel García Márquez, the Colombian Nobel-prize winning author of the book One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. Its genus has been named after the Kankuamo, the indigenous people who inhabit the slopes of the mountain range where the tarantula was found.
Many species of Tarantulas defend themselves or attack prey by launching poisonous javelin-like hairs from their abdomens at the target. Aimed and shot at the enemy, a ball of stinging hairs can cause fatal injuries to small mammals when landed into their mucous membrane.
The Kankuamo marquezi is the first species that jabs its butt bristles, or urticating hairs, straight into its foes, like a fencer with a hundred swords.
See news.nationalgeographic.com/… for some more details.
Which brings us to the topic of our title – organisms named after famous people (excluding scientists). There are hundreds of them, some documented at en.wikipedia.org/…
What goes into naming a new species? The rule is that anytime someone finds an animal, vegetable or mineral new to science, the discoverer has the privilege of giving it a name. Species names have to follow certain rules and naming conventions. Species have to be given a two-part Latin name and must be described in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
Here are a few notable and relevant species names —
There are some organisms named after Republicans and some of history’s notorious characters. For example, Agathidium bushi, Agathidium cheneyi, Agathidium rumsfeldi and Agathidium vaderi are species of slime mold-eating Beetles named after George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Darth Vader respectively.
Update (Feb 2017)
A new species of coral-reef fish in Hawaii was named Tosanoides obama after President Obama. The announcement was made earlier in 2016 and finalized with a published paper in December 2016.
The fish was discovered during a June 2016 NOAA expedition to the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in the remote Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. The fish was named after Obama to recognize his efforts to protect and preserve the natural environment, including the expansion of Papahānaumokuākea.
The fish and Obama was featured in the film "Sea of Hope: America's Underwater Treasures", on the National Geographic Channel on January 15, 2017.
Journal paper at zookeys.pensoft.net/…
You can search for the people you admire at en.wikipedia.org/...