Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi was honored by paleontologists who unearthed 469-million-year-old fossils of an eel-like creature, and named one of them Drepanoistodus Iommii.
The newly discovered fossils are part of a conodont species that, according to an official report from the team , was unearthed from a limestone succession in western Russia that formed sediments on the seabed during the Ordovician period.
Paleontologist Mats E. Eriksson , one of those responsible for the discovery, is a big fan of heavy metal and chose to honor the guitarist for his influence on the genre. “ Tony Iommi is at the top of my list of people I wanted to honor in this way,” he told The European Journal of Taxonomy (via Bravewords ).
“To my great satisfaction, my fellow co-authors loved the suggestion. So now Tony Iommi is also immortalized in scientific literature with the beautiful species Drepanoistodus Iommii ,” he concluded.
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