No 1 Jay Chou fan? A scientist just named 16 spiders after his songs
In 2011, Taiwan’s astronomers named an asteroid after the Mandopop star – now, a scientist has brought us ‘Excuse spider’ and ‘Rainbow spider’
A Chinese scientist has named 16 new spider species after songs by popular Mandopop musician Jay Chou.
Mi Xiaoqi, a professor at Tongren University in China’s southwestern Guizhou province, listed the newly discovered arachnids in a paper published in the academic journal Zoological Research: Diversity and Conservation.
The paper, published in December, has gone viral since being discovered by netizens this year, with a related hashtag on microblogging platform Weibo racking up over 26 million views since last week.
Weibo users have since dubbed Mi, 44, the “Ultimate Fan”.
One of the arachnids – the 3.5-millimetre long Cyclosa xingqing sp. nov. or “Starry Mood spider” – is named after a hit love song from Chou’s debut album Jay released in 2000.
Others are named after similarly beloved tunes, including “Rainbow spider”, “Dragon Fist spider” and “Excuse spider”.