Charles posted this on his Twitter stream and it was too wonderful not to re-post here: Newly discovered mushroom is named Spongiformia squarepantsii
They named it after SpongeBob! Part of it, I guess, was because it looked like a sea sponge, but it also has the odd property of being able to soak up water, be wrung out, and go back to its original size.
This is just evidence against the stereotype of scientists having neither senses of humor nor whimsy. (I suppose it's possible one of the researchers was thinking of his or her child and their fondness for the show when the fungus was named...but I've met enough adults who like SpongeBob to also believe that the namer could have been a SpongeBob fan).
And I bet Stephen Hillenburg(SpongeBob's creator, who is actually a marine biolgist) is delighted by this. (I remember the Far Side comic author Gary Larson was delighted when an entomologist named a species of sucking louse after him.)
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