Spider Named for David Bowie

German arachnologist Peter Jaeger has discovered 200 species of spiders in the past decade. Now he has named one of his finds after singer David Bowie. The new species, a large yellow spider in Malaysia, is called Heteropoda davidbowie. Jaeger said he named the spider to draw attention to the discovery, and to the endangered status of many spiders.

“It is working against time,” he said. “We are also quickly losing genetic resources that have evolved over more than 300 million years.”

Bowie had a 1972 album entitled The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. His 1987 tour was named the Glass Spider Tour. Link -via Digg

(image credit: Senckenberg Forschungsinstitute/Naturmuseen)