prehistoric crocodile named after Motorhead's Lemmy

A newly classified species of a prehistoric crocodile has been named after late Motorhead frontman Lemmy. That’s an artist’s rendering of the formidable, leathery Lemmysuchus obtusidens, which lived around 164 million years ago during the Middle Jurassic Period. From London’s Natural History Museum:

‘With a metre-long skull and a total length of 5.8 metres, it would have been one of the biggest coastal predators of its time,’ says University of Edinburgh palaeontologist Michela Johnson, who helped to untangle the identity of Lemmysuchus.

The specimen, housed in the Museum, was dug up by collectors in the early twentieth century from a clay pit quarry near Peterborough, Cambridgeshire. However, it was incorrectly categorised with the remains of other sea crocodiles found in the same location.

Natural History Museum Lorna Steel, a Motorhead fan, suggested the name. “Although Lemmy passed away at the end of 2015, we’d like to think that he would have raised a glass to Lemmysuchus, one of the nastiest sea creatures to have ever inhabited the Earth.”

This may make up a bit for Lemmy not getting a heavy metal element named after him.