Photo author: Tom Burke

Celebrities have their names attached to anything and everything, from clothing lines, to colognes and perfumes.  However, nothing epitomizes the cool of celebrity like having a living creature named after you.  Believe it or not, several celebrities have had spider species named in their honor.  Check out these 3 spiders named for celebrities.

1. Pachygnatha zappa

This spider was discovered in Africa’s Mount Cameroon by two Belgian scientists named Robert Bosman and Jan Bosselaers.  In 1994, P. zappa was named for legendary composer Frank Zappa, who died in 1993 after a battle with prostate cancer.

While Bosselaers was a fan of Zappa’s music and saw him perform in concert nearly a dozen times, the true reason that P. zappa acquired its famous name, can be found by looking on the abdomen of the female spider.  The dark marks found there strikingly resemble Zappa’s famous mustache.

2. Aptostichus stephencolberti

A. stephencolberti is a species named in 2008, after East Carolina University professor James Bond received a complaint call from Comedy Central political satirist Stephen Colbert.  On his show – The Colbert Report – Colbert’s character is a right winger who was upset by Bond naming a spider species after known left wing activist and musician Neil Young.  After begging on national television, Colbert soon found that he too was getting his own spider species.

Colbert’s namesake is a trapdoor spider found on the California coastline.  Interestingly enough, this spider is closely related to another spider with a famous name -Aptostichus angelinajoleae.  Hopefully you won’t need three guesses to figure out whom that spider is named after.

3. Heteropoda davidbowie

Peter Jäger, a German spider enthusiast and expert, had a mission when he named this spider after bad boy rocker David Bowie.  Jäger’s goal was to use Bowie’s famous name to draw attention to spider species that are often forgotten, or destroyed by humans.

Like Zappa’s spider, H. davidbowie vaguely resembles his namesake.  This wild looking spider has brightly colored, electric yellow hair – much like Bowie’s.   The species can be found in certain parts of Malaysia, and is also endangered.

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