Bad Religion honoured bypaleontologists

Thu 19th May, 2011 in International News

Bad Religion will join rock dinosaurs Van Halen and Alice Cooper on the Soundwave Revolution tour, but those aren’t the only fossils on Bad Religion frontman Greg Graffin’s mind.

Graffin has a second career as an author and academic with a PhD in zoology from Cornell University and paleontologists have now honoured the singer by naming a species of ancient bird discovered in the in Gansu Province of Northwestern China in his honour. One of the discoverers Dr. Jingmai O’Connor explains that the bird was named Qiliania graffini “in honor of Dr. Gregory Graffin, PhD: paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, professor, rock star, and inspiration to numerous budding and established scientists around the world.”

The punk singer joins The Sex Pistols ( Arcticalymene viciousi, Arcticalymene rotteni, Arcticalymene jonesi, Arcticalymene cooki, Arcticalymene matlocki ), Elvis ( Preseucoila imallshookupis ), Simon and Garfunkel ( Avalanchurus simony and Avalanchurus garfunkeli ), Neil Young ( Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi ) and David Bowie ( Heteropoda davidbowie ) on the list of musical celebrities who have animals named in their honour.

It seems that Graffin will soon devote more of his time to science and teaching evolution at Cornell university. According Dying Scene Graffin also recently revealed that will probably not record any more albums after the next one, announcing at a recent concert that “After this year you probably won’t be seeing much more of us. We’re going to try one more album and then all join the navy, do honest work.”