Retouched drawing by: Smith609

In honor of World Oceans Day on June 8th, Birch Aquarium is hosting a contest to name two recently identified species of deep-sea worms. This is your chance to come up with a crazy scientific name!

The general public gets to name one worm and the other deep-sea worm will be named by a K-12 class. For all the details and instructions visit the Birch Aquarium website.

I, as a member of the general public, may make an attempt at coming up with the species name for Vrijenhoekia _________. This is one cool worm, in the photo it looks like an underwater caterpillar. Hhmm, maybe Vrijenhoekia caterpillarius. I just submitted that to the copyright office by the way, so don’t try to submit it as your own, I know it must be very tempting since it’s so creative. (I’m joking but alas, sarcasm doesn’t always come across properly in text.)

This could be fun because there’s no way you can mess up! And there’s a very good chance you will actually come up with a great name. If your confidence is feeling a bit low, all you have to do is look at some of the scientific names for beaked whales: Mesoplodon densirostris, Mesoplodon layardii, Mesoplodon peruvianus…are you getting the picture? It’s only uphill from there my friend.