Celebrities enjoy special perks in life. They're popular, they earn a lot of money and there's a big chance that scientists would name new species of organisms after them and that's apparently how "fortunate" Jennifer Lopez is.
A group of scientists decided to name a new species of water mite that was discovered in Puerto Rico after Jennifer Lopez. The celebrity singer who is behind the hit songs "Ain't It Funny," "All I Have" and ''I Luh Ya Papi" happens to have Puerto Rican roots.
Vladimir Pesic, a biologist at the University of Montenegro, said that Lopez's music was a hit to his group while they were writing about their discovery of the new species of water mite so they decided to name the organism after the singer as a token of gratitude.
"The reason behind the unusual choice of name for the new species is ... simple: J.Lo's songs and videos kept the team in a continuous good mood when writing the manuscript and watching World Cup Soccer 2014," Pesic told the Associated Press.
Pesic and colleagues described the water mite, which they have named Litarachna lopezae in "A new species of Litarachna (Acari, Hydrachnidia, Pontarachnidae) from a Caribbean mesophotic coral ecosystem," which was published in the peer-reviewed Journal ZooKeys on July 15.
The newly discovered water mite was collected from a coral reef in Mona Passage, a strait that separates Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, during a series of trips organized by the University of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean Coral Reef Institute from 2010 to 2012. The researchers also reported that the species was collected at a depth of 69.5 meters.
"The single female from Puerto Rico closely resembles Litarachna communis Walter, 1925, a species widespread in Mediterranean (Pešić et al. 2012a), but clearly differs in having more bowed, arrow-shaped pregenital sclerite," Pesic and colleagues wrote in their report. "Most probably we are dealing with an undescribed species, but since male specimens were not available, a final decision cannot be made."
This is not the first time that scientists have named an organism after a famous celebrity. Scientists, for instance, have named a type of trilobite after Rolling Stones lead vocalist Mick Jagger and one spider has been named after Bono. A marine parasite that could only be found in the Caribbean sea was also named after the Jamaican reggae musician Bob Marley.
