In March of last year, I blogged about a scientific paper in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences in which several new species of trilobites were named after alternative rock stars of the Eighties.
Now, in the same combined spirit of paleontology and popular culture, I report on a paper in the December 2010 Journal of Systematic Paleontology (abstract here). Stephen R. Westrop, Raina A. Waskiewicz Poole, and Jonathan M. Adrain investigate trilobites from the Cambrian of Oklahoma. (Adrain is one of the authors of the earlier paper.) The following new species are established:
Dokimocephalus stewarti
Dokimocephalus blacki
Stittella beeae
The theme here, which may or may not be apparent to you, is that these trilobites are named after people from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart—Jon Stewart, Lewis Black, and Samantha Bee. (I must admit that I have never watched The Daily Show, which appeals only to a very specific audience of smug young urban liberal college-educated white people.) I, of course, know who Jon Stewart is; I have no idea at all who Samantha Bee is; and I have some idea of Lewis Black from his appearances on other shows, though not much beyond the general impression that at any moment his head could explode.
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