New Tardigrade Species Named After Eurovision Winner

A pair of researchers identified two new tardigrade species and named one of them after Eurovision winner Alexander Rybak.

In a recent study, published in the journal Zoosystematics and Evolution, a pair of researchers described two new tardigrade species. One of the tardigrade species was collected from a litter sample in suburban Jackson, Mississippi, while the other was from a moss sample from a rock in shrubland in Crete, Greece.

However, while routinely studying the samples, the researchers observed something rather odd. The tardigrade eggs in the samples looked quite unlike the other eggs of the described tardigrade species, study co-author Matteo Vecchi said in a Pensoft Publishers guest blog post. The tardigrade egg from Crete had some conic projections on its surface while the one from Mississippi looked like it had spikes.

Sure enough, they were two different tardigrade species.

"We identified two new tardigrade species in the genus Macrobiotus using an integrative taxonomy approach combining the analyses of detailed morphological and genetic data," the researchers wrote.

Tardigrades named after a friend and a Eurovision winner

The pair named the tardigrade discovered in Mississippi after their "friend and colleague," evolutionary ecologist Dr. Anne Winters, who was actually the one who collected the samples. Thus, the species is now known as the Macrobiotus annewintersae.

The tardigrade from Crete, on the other hand, was named after the winner of Eurovision Song Contest in 2009, Alexander Rybak. The species now has the name Macrobiotus rybaki.

Rybak won the 2009 Eurovision by a "landslide," scoring significantly higher than the runner-up and breaking the contest's previous score record. He was awarded the Norwegian Grammy award in 2010 and has dabbled in acting since. He voiced the character of Hiccup in "Hot to Train Your Dragon and "How To Train Your Dragon 2" in the Norwegian dub of the films. He has even written a children's book.

According to Rybak, the Eurovision contest, as well as YouTube, was "a big help" for him to show his talent.

"The choice to dedicate the new species to Alexander Rybak is the fruit of our (mine and Daniel's) passion for the Eurovision Song Contest," Vecchi said in the blog. "We are both fans of this very popular, diverse and cheerful song contest, and we wanted to honour it with a reference to one of its most iconic winners."

Naming tardigrades after well-known personalities does not only celebrate the people the creatures are named after, but also helps bring more attention to the creatures and in the efforts to conserve them, according to Vecchi.

'Extreme' water bears

There are about 1,300 tardigrade species across the world, National Geographic said. These microscopic creatures are quite hardy, and despite looking soft actually have tough cuticles similar to grasshopper exoskeletons.

Also known as "water bears," because they look rather like tiny bears, tardigrades are "extremophiles," or creatures that can survive extreme conditions that others can't. This includes extreme cold, having no food for up to 30 years and even in the vacuum of space.