190-Million-Year-Old Fossil Named In Honor Of ALICE COOPER
"A new fossil has just been named Serpula alicecooperi in honor of the American singer and performer Alice Cooper
Serpula alicecooperi is 190 million years old, and represents a serpulid worm, a kind of marine worm who constructed a calcific tube it lived in. They live by filtering the sea water with their crown of tentacles, and when they feel threatened, they can retract their bodies into the tube that closes with a lid. The fossil was found by amateur geologist Mette Hoftstedt in the 190-million-year-old Hasle Sandstone on the Danish Island of Bornholm and was handed over to the researchers on Geomuseum Faxe in Denmark to be studied and identified. The study describing and naming the fossil was conducted by researchers Tomas Koči from the Natural History Museum in Prague, Czech Republic, Jesper Mil?n and Sten Lennart Jakobsen from Geomuseum Faxe, Denmark and Arden Basforth from the Natural History Museum of Denma
Mil?n says: "When we studied the fossil, it quickly became clear that it was a new and unknown species of serpulid worm we were dealing with. Being both a palaeontologist and a huge fan of metal and rock music, I have always thought that if somebody deserved to have a fossil named in his honor, it should be Alice for his enormous impact on the musical scene during the last half decade, and his music has been firmly playing in the background during much of my research."