Music

Swedish scientist names 420-million-year-old worm fossil after legendary metalhead King Diamond

by Tyler Munro

Dr. Mats Eriksson is a Swedish Professor of Palaeontology at Lund University. He also loves heavy metal, and his latest discovery combines his passion for music with science’s penchant for naming new discoveries in its own weird form of pig latin.

Like the Kalloprion Kilmisteri fossil he named after Motorhead’s Lemmy Kilmister in 2006, Dr. Eriksson has discovered another extinct worm fossil, this one with jaws and fangs. This one he’s named after one of heavy metal’s most iconic and unique voices.

“A circa 420 million year old fossil organism was recently discovered from Silurian rocks of Sweden and Estonia,” said Eriksson, via Loudwire. “It is the remains of a marine worm with jaws. The critter was baptized ‘Kingnites diamondi’ in honour of Danish metal maestro King Diamond.”

Pretty cool. And you can see from the picture of the fossil posted above, the resemblance is remarkably, dare I say uncanny.