Time Person of the Year. Subject of a Hulu documentary. Nobel Peace Prize nominee. Snail.
Young Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has made a splash on the global scene as she works to raise awareness of the many devastating climate issues facing our planet. A team of researchers honored her efforts by naming a newly discovered species of snail after her.
The group of scientists and citizen scientists with Taxon Expeditions found the land snail, now named "Craspedotropis gretathunbergae," during a research trip in Borneo. The team published a description of the snail in the Biodiversity Data Journal on Thursday.
The name is especially appropriate considering the snails' potential vulnerability to the effects of climate change. "The newly described snail belongs to the so-called caenogastropods, a group of land snails known to be sensitive to drought, temperature extremes and forest degradation," said snail expert Menno Schilthuizen, co-founder of Taxon.
The researchers reported in the paper that they had reached out to Thunberg through mutual contacts and learned she would be "delighted" to have the snail named after her.
"Naming this snail after Greta Thunberg is our way of acknowledging that her generation will be responsible for fixing problems that they did not create," said J.P. Lim, who found the first specimen of the species. "And it's a promise that people from all generations will join her to help."
