Believe it or not there are actually online vendors that sell insects! These can range from dead insects, eggs and larvae, to full grown adults. One of my favorite sites is called “Bugs in Cyberspace”. I bring this up because it’s a fun dash of SF for a business already handling insects, creatures that I have been proposing to be heavily intertwined with science fiction. If you’re bored right now and are looking for some bugs to raise, check this site out!

URLs:

https://shop.bugsincyberspace.com/main.sc

The heck is up with that shrimp!? It’s got a massive pink claw!

What’s also pink and big and somewhat SF related? Of course, the band behind The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd!

Researchers found this 5.5mm-long pistol shrimp off the coast of Panama and named it Synalpheus pinkfloydi. The scientists were fans of the band and found a perfect opportunity to do so. To understand an even more interesting fact, we must dive into the biology of the shrimp.

The hinge on the massive claw actually “cocks” just as the hammer on a gun does. When unsuspecting prey comes by, the claw snaps shut at such an immense speed that a sonic boom erupts and stuns the unfortunate fish. These booms are so powerful that it can mess up communication signals for scientific research underwater. Apparently this is similar to some Pink Floyd concerts that were so loud that nearby fish died in a pond. I have to admit that seems like kind of a stretch- wouldn’t that kill people too?

Anyhow, here’s yet another example of SF-inspired taxonomy. Invertebrates are cool!

URLs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synalpheus_pinkfloydi (info)

https://www.livescience.com/58664-shrimp-named-for-band-pink-floyd.html (info + image)

While searching for David Bowie and his relation to spiders, I was astounded to find all sorts of images about an actual spider species- Heteropoda davidbowie.

Apparently the spider was named after the taxonomists noted that the face looked very much like Bowie’s makeup. Furthermore, the researchers loved how Bowie weaved in spiders into his works, such as the song Glass Spider and his back-up band The Spiders from Mars.

Throughout most of my blog I have focused on the way actual science- especially insects and invertebrates- has influenced the science fiction. This scenario is the polar opposite in which a spider was named after a famous SF artist. The categorization of this spider goes to show how much SF has permeated our society. I find it vastly ironic that something that is “made-up” in the first place becomes real in a sense through actual science.

URLs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heteropoda_davidbowie (Info + image)