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And Finally Artist News
Ant species named after Radiohead
By Chris Cooke | Published on Tuesday 25 April 2017
Radiohead have had a species of ant named after them, which pretty much means they’ve achieved everything now and can retire.
What will now be known as ‘sericomyrmex radioheadi’ were discovered in the Venezuelan Amazon and documented by Ana Ješovnik and Ted R Schultz of the Smithsonian Institution’s Ant Lab.
The scientists decided to name the ants after the band partly because they like their music, but also to acknowledge the outfit’s eco credentials, which are not limited to, but include, once writing the lyric “no killing moths or putting boiling water on the ants”.
Said Ješovnik: “We wanted to honour their music. But more importantly, we wanted to acknowledge the conservation efforts of the band members, especially in raising climate-change awareness”.
The newly discovered ants are fungus farmers. There’s a joke sitting somewhere in that fact, and I’ll memo it to you just as soon as I find it.
