Alice Cooper: for him a Jurassic fossil
A recently discovered fossil of a Jurassic worm species is named after the shock-rock legend Alice Cooper.
Scientists have dubbed the 190-million-year-old marine worm fossil “Serpula alicecooperi” after it was discovered by amateur geologist Mette Hoftstedt on the Danish island of Bornholm.
What was found was then studied by researchers Arden Basforth of the Natural History Museum of Denmark, Tomas Koči of the Natural History Museum of Prague and Jesper Milàn and Sten Lennart Jakobsen of the Faxe Geomuseum in Denmark. Native to the Early Jurassic (about 199.6 to about 175.6 million years ago), the fossil species is described as a marine worm with a crown of tentacles and a protective tube-shaped shell in which to hide to avoid attacks. predators.
“When we studied the fossil, it quickly became clear that we were dealing with a new and unknown species of serpulid worm,” Milàn said.
Regarding the nomenclature, he added: “Being both a paleontologist and a huge fan of metal and rock music, I always thought that if anyone deserved to have a fossil named in her honor, it had to be Alice for her enormous impact on the musical world during the last half of a decade. Furthermore,” the scholar concluded, “her music was firmly in the background during much of my research.”
According to Milàn, “Serpulid worms pioneered their particular lifestyle when they first evolved” and “are still around to this day.” Likewise, “Alice was a pioneer of the shock rock scene when it arrived in the late sixties and is still around today.”
With this very appropriate choice Alice Cooper (actually more fond of snakes), joins other rock and metal bands, such as Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath, Gojira and The Ocean, who have fossils named after them.