Image Credit: Kevin Kane/WireImage
Science has given us some amazing things over the years: penicillin, cloning, Bill Nye. And thanks to an international team of biologists, we can now add Loureedia to that list.
That’s the name chosen for a new genus of spider that, due to its dark and shiny coat of velvet, reminded the group of Velvet Underground legend Lou Reed. Also, the spider likes to hang out underground, so, you know.
According to Sci-News, “most velvet spiders are rarely encountered” and are native to Africa, Asia, and Europe. Fortuitously enough, Reed will be touring Europe this summer, meaning that there’s a chance Human Lou might actually get to meet Spider Lou. It certainly wouldn’t be his weirdest partnership to date.
So this is all cool, obviously — but Reed’s not the first to get the spider’d. Neil Young, for example, has the trapdoor spider Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi and Frank Zappa has the mustached Pachygnatha zappa spider; elsewhere, Jerry Garcia has the wood roach species Cryptocercus garciai, Henry Rollins has the “extreme jellyfish” Amphinema rollinsi, and Mick Jagger has both the trilobite Aegrotocatellus jaggeri and the fossilized mollusk Anomphalus jaggerius.
