David Attenborough has ancient shrimp fossil named after him

The Cascolus Ravitis was named by geologists from the University of Leicester

Wildlife documentary maker and national treasure Sir David Attenborough has been honoured with another discovery being named after him.

A 430-million-year-old fossil found ‘frozen in time’ has been called Cascolus Ravitis, Cascolus being the Latin equivalent to the Old English word for Attenborough.

Ravitis refers in part to the Roman name for Leicester (ratae), the University from which the researchers herald and where Attenborough studied, and the word for life (vita).

The ancient crustacean - a distant relative to modern lobsters, shrimps and crabs - measures just nine millimetres in length and was found in a volcanic ash deposit in Herefordshire.

Researchers called the specimen a particularly unique example that “preserves incredible detail including body parts that are normally not fossilised.”


 A computer render of the fossil

Attending a ceremony at the University of Leicester, Attenborough said: “The biggest compliment that a biologist or palaeontologist can pay to another one is to name a fossil in his honour and I take this as a very great compliment.”

Alongside those from the Department of Geology at Leicester, researchers from the Universities of Oxford, Imperial College London and Yale University also contributed to the discovery.

Recently, a newly discovered species of frog - the Pristimantis attenboroughi, which lives high in the Andes Mountains of South America – was been named after Attenborough.

The broadcast said of that discovery: “One of the nicest compliments one biologist can pay another is to name a new species after him. This is a very great compliment from this scientist.”

Meanwhile, the BBC recently announced a second series of Blue Planet will be hitting TV screens later this year following the success of Planet Earth II.