Scientists love Lemmy, name a reptile after him

Scientists love Lemmy, name a reptile after him

The rock ‘n’ roll world lost one of its apex predators when Ian ”Lemmy” Kilmister died in December 2015, and now some hard-partying scientists at the University of Edinburgh have further secured the Motörhead frontman’s immortality by naming an ancient crocodile after him. According to Inverse, Lemmysuchus obtusidens lived 164 million years ago, was 19 feet long, and would have fucking loved Jack and Cokes, if Jack and Cokes had existed in the Middle Jurassic Period. (We’re just making assumptions on that last part.)

The new species was given its name after the discovery that scientists 100 years ago had miscategorized the ancient reptiles of Europe, lumping in Lemmysuchus with lesser crocodiles that probably listened to Poison or some shit. New anatomical comparison of various fossils revealed that Lemmysuchus ate turtles by crushing their shells with its teeth, way more hardcore than regular, fish-eating Middle Jurassic crocodiles.

“Although Lemmy passed away at the end of 2015,” Lorna Stell of the Natural History Museum of London says, “we’d like to think that he would have raised a glass to Lemmysuchus, one of the nastiest sea creatures to have ever inhabited the Earth.”

 
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