10 Hilarious Scientific Names You Have to Hear to Believe

Sometimes there aren't too many rules when it comes to giving something it's scientific name—over the years, that's resulted in some pretty outrageous and downright hilarious specimens! Join Michael Aranda and learn the top ten ridiculous scientific names that will leave you speechless!
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[Diceyed]

I personally love the Eurasian Brown Bear "Ursus arctos arctos" or simply put the bear bear bear.

[scienceisanart]

Agra vation is my favorite. The researcher couldn't think of a good descriptive name for a beetle in the Agra genus

[RanDom-bnxm]

Animals and plants don't get all the fun. Ever heard of the Sonic Hedgehog gene? It's inhibitor is called Robotnikinin.

[kamil]

Professor, what is this beetle called?

I't is a jelly fish.

[poprox]

There is a species of louse named after famed cartoonist Gary Larson (of The Far Side fame), Strigiphilus garylarsoni. I love how he handled it: "I considered this an extreme honor. Besides, I knew no one was going to write and ask to name a new species of swan after me. You have to grab these opportunities when they come along."

[bensullivan]

HOW COULD YOU OMIT THE SNAIL CALLED CRIKEY STEVEIRWINI

[marcuskaiser]

No! Don't name a species after your favorite Game of Thrones character, it'll go extinct!

[Matreud]

Traveller of the void is a badass name.

[Masteryfi]

there is a sponge species called after spongebob (Spongiforma squarepantsii)

[tomlangford]

I'd name my species Hankus Greenus

[JohnSWeekley]

Was really hoping you'd mention the Gojirasaurus, named after Gojira, or as we all know him, Godzilla.

[Pulstar]

Han Solo...just as preserved as Harrison Ford in carbonite and just as dead as it's namesake.

[EugeneKhutoryansky]

This just further reinforces why we should focus on understanding the scientific phenomena, and not on memorizing the arbitrary names we have come up for the phenomena.

[KaiserWilhelm]

I'd love to see this done for genetics. I'm sure Sonichedgehog is only the tip of the iceberg.

[hinish]

How about Pikachurin. Proteins have fun names too.

[OctagonDinosaur]

What about the protein in humans called Sonic hedgehog, and the inhibitor of it called, Robotnikinin.

[bananaguard]

Han Solo also fits because the trilobites are extinct and Han dies....

[aletomochan]

I love how excited Michael seems about hosting this episode

[JohannaElixirdanza]

Here in Colombia we have a recently named frog species called 'Allobates niputidea'. The trivial name means "no f***ing idea" and it was selected because this frog is similar to a lot of other similar brown little frog species and it's really hard for herpetologists to classify it

[pterosaurology]

6:50 "Tolkein probably named his dragon after the German word for 'squeezing through a hole'" I think it's much more likely that he named it Smaug after the Polish word "smok" meaning dragon.