Taylor Swift has more than 200 songs to her name. And now, there’s also a millipede.
Derek Hennen, an entomologist who completed his Ph.D. at Virginia Tech in 2020, discovered a millipede species and named it in Swift’s honor, according to a paper published Friday in the journal ZooKeys. The species is called Nannaria swiftae — or vernacularly, the Swift Twisted-Claw Millipede.
The discovery of the species was part of a paper by Hennen, along with co-authors Jackson Means and Paul Marek, that identified 17 new species of Twisted-Claw Millipedes from Appalachia. Researchers determined the insect named for Swift was a unique species because of the millipede’s genetics and “special legs,” Hennen explained.
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