Bloodsucker Named After ... Bob Marley

10 years after its discovery, new parasite gets a famous name
By Liam Carnahan,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 11, 2012 2:30 PM CDT
Bloodsucker Named After ... Bob Marley
In this 1980 file photo, Bob Marley performs at a reggae festival concert in Paris.   (AP Photo/file)

More than 30 years after his death, Bob Marley has a new, strange accomplishment. Researchers at Arkansas State University have named a parasitic crustacean that makes its home in warm Caribbean waters after the late reggae star, reports LiveScience. It doesn't seem like Gnathia marleyi shares Marley's "one love" sentiment, however—the species hides in coral reefs and ambushes, then infests, passing fish, feasting on their blood.

Researcher Paul Sikkel first discovered the creature a decade ago, and says he named the bloodsucker Gnathia marleyi in part because of his love of Marley's music, and because the creature, like its namesake, is "uniquely Caribbean." The singer is far from the first celeb to have a creepy crawly named after him. A fly with a special derriere shares its name with Beyonce; Stephen Colbert and Barack Obama have lent their names to others. (More Bob Marley stories.)

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