Elton John has been honoured by a type of shrimp being named after him

That Sir Elton John’s music inspires important scientific research is heartening, but the fact that a new species of crustacean has been named Leucothoe eltoni after him won’t be music to the diminutive singer’s ears. Though the researcher who discovered it is clearly prawn to hero worship, his likening the shrimp-like creature’s “greatly enlarged appendage” to the Pinball Wizard is unlikely to enthuse the recipient of the honour. Of course, John can take heart that several crustaceans have been named after other singers, from Mick Jagger to Michael Jackson, without any allusions to similitude.

Flowers are regularly named after famous people — a Sikkimese orchid was dubbed Cymbidium Namo just this January — but being tagged to an insect must be quite bugging. Beyoncé cannot have been overjoyed to learn that a fly has been called Scaptia (Plinthina) beyonceae, nor could David Bowie have been pleased that a golden-haired spider has been christened Heteropoda davidbowie.

Given the propensity of scientists to name insects after celebrities, it is odd that beetles have been named after George WBush, Pope John Paul II and Che Guevara, among others, but not the Fab Four. A tarantula spider species called Bumba lennoni and an extinct marine arthropod named Struszia mccartneyi cannot compensate for this astonishing lacuna.