Etymology
According to the original publication, the generic name Han is a reference to the Han Chinese, the largest ethnic group in present-day China; and the specific epithet solo refers to the fact that the species is the youngest Diplagnostidae fossil found to that date, suggesting that it was the last surviving member of that family. However, Turvey has stated elsewhere that he named it after Han Solo because some friends dared him to name a species after a Star Wars character.
This is not the only unusual scientific name erected by Turvey; in the same paper he named a new species of Geragnostus G. waldorfstatleri, because of "the resemblance of the pygidial axis to the heads of Waldorf and Statler, two characters from The Muppet Show." The actor who portrays Han Solo in Star Wars, Harrison Ford, also has a species of spider named for him, Calponia harrisonfordi. Arachnologist Norman I. Platnick named it for him out of thanks for assistance in a museum film production. Other taxa named after Star Wars characters include the isopod Albunione yoda, the orabatid mite genus Darthvaderum, the wasps Polemistus chewbacca and Polemistus vaderi, and the beetle Agathidium vaderi.
Read more about this topic: Han Solo (trilobite)
Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
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