Lionel Messi Paleontologist Names 20-Million-Year-Old Fossil After 'La Pulga'
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Having a lizard named after him wasn't enough homage to 'La Pulga', now an Argentine paleontologist named a 20-million-year-old fossil after Lionel Messi.
It seems that no tribute to Lionel Messi is enough, especially in Argentina, where he has recently been honored in an unusual way, since they have just named a recently discovered 20-million-year-old fossil with the last name of the captain of the Albiceleste team.
A team of paleontologists found the remains of an unknown organism in Argentine Patagonia and did not hesitate to name it after the player amazing football of our time for the inhabitants of the South American country.
And it is that the discovered fossil meets certain characteristics that can also be attributed to the captain of the Argentina national team since it is not a large dinosaur or a colossal predator, but an exceptionally small marine species, very rare and resilient, as described by paleontologists.
In this way, the tiny marine organism with the appearance of a mollusk that lived 20 million years ago now has the scientific name Discinisca media, as the researcher Damian E Perez decided so.
“As far as I understand, it is the first fossil that bears the name of Messi,” paleontologist Perez, from the National Patagonian Center (CENPAT), in Puerto Madryn, Chubut, told the Science Agency Told in Spanish (SINC).
“In 2019, a living lizard had been dedicated to him, Liolaemus messy”, recalled the researcher, who took advantage of the interview to recount how the famous South American striker, who had just won the World Cup, from Qatar 2022, inspired the name of the fossil.
“The work was sent in its final version to Ameghiniana magazine, on December 20 of last year, while all the Argentine people celebrated the arrival of the players in the country. There was no other option. It is a small way of dedicating something to one of the two most important players in the history of the Argentine national team and world football. And to thank for the happiness it gave us," he adds.
Regarding his theory of what this organism was like 20 million years ago, he shared that "it was a filter-feeding animal that fed on small microorganisms. It probably had few predators, especially as it was rare: rare as Messi,” he said.
"It's a way of paying homage to one of the most important soccer players in history," explains Damián Pérez, paleontologist at @CONICETCenpat.
— SINC (@agencia_sinc) June 6, 2023
The researcher named the fossil of a new mollusk found in Patagonia as #Messi
âœï¸ @fedkukso https://t .co/IRo1RxRjF9
Other species with famous names
It is worth mentioning that this practice of relating newly found species with known names, which are in people's unconscious, helps scientists so that their discoveries do not go unnoticed and can reach a public that would not be interested without this name
The examples are numerous, currently, there are spiders named after David Bowie, Ozzy Osbourne, Johnny Cash, John Lennon, Harrison Ford, Pablo Neruda, Jack Nicholson, Orson Welles, Elvis Presley, and the Uruguayan writer Mario Benedetti. Trilobites honor Mick Jagger and Marilyn Monroe and beetles honor Arnold Schwarzenegger. An extinct lizard reminds Jim Morrison, a crustacean Stephen Hawking, a worm Bob Marley, a sea lily Salvador Dalí. Wasps have been named in memory of Rosalind Franklin, Lady Gaga, or Shakira. And writer Michael Crichton, the author of Jurassic Park, has two dinosaurs named after him: Crichtonsaurus and Crichtonpelta bendiness.
Specifically in sport, we also find abundant examples, such as the sea snail named in honor of the tennis player Boris Becker: Bufonaria borisbeckeri, or the beetle that pays homage to “Nole”: Duvalius Djokovic. As for soccer, we have the herbivorous dinosaur Iniestapodus, named after Andrés Iniesta, the coral Paragorgia James, after the Colombian soccer player James Rodríguez and, to name just a couple in homage to Diego Armando Maradona, we have a wasp called Anaphes Maradona and a flying insect named Maradona dragonfly.
As in the case of the mythical 10th World Cup champion in Mexico in 1986, in addition to paying homage to life, these details also serve to immortalize them.