Gojira has inspired the names of a trio of newly discovered fossils.
The fossils are of ophiuroids, or ‘brittle stars,’ found in France, Luxembourg and Austria during the Early Jurassic epoch. They’re called Ophiogojira labadiei, Ophiogojira andreui and Ophioduplantiera noctiluca.
In addition to incorporating Gojira into the names, each fossil also references the individual band members: bassist Jean-Michel Labadie, guitarist Christian Andreu, and frontman and drummer Joe and Mario Duplantier.
An article in the Royal Society Open Science journal explains that Gojira was chosen as inspiration for the fossil names in recognition of the French metal outfit “producing songs of an unfathomable intensity, beautifully dark and heavy, and exploring the abyss of life and death, of human strength and error, and of thriving and yet threatened oceans.”
Fittingly, Gojira’s new album, Fortitude, especially the single “Amazonia,” deals a lot with environmental issues.
By the way, Gojira isn’t the only metal band part of science history. Metallica previously inspired the name of a deep-sea crustacean, while a venomous snake species was named after frontman James Hetfield.
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