Simon Ings

Taxonomy reaches celebrity heights

An Indonesian spider is named after David Bowie — and Donald Trump is honoured by a moth with blond, comb-over scales

David Bowie Spider. Credit: Alamy

  • Charles Darwin’s Barnacle and David Bowie’s Spider: How Scientific Names Celebrate Adventurers, Heroes and Even a few Scoundrels

    Stephen B. Heard

    Yale,, pp. 256, £20

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading for free

Subscribe today to get 3 months’ free digital access.

  • Unlimited access to our website and app
  • Enjoy Spectator newsletters and podcasts
  • Explore our online archive, going back to 1828
  • Plus, three months’ free digital access to the Telegraph

Read next

Trending

Steerpike

‘Ignorant’ Lammy urged to retract Azerbaijan remarks

Steerpike
It’s a gaffe a day with David Lammy. Now the Foreign Secretary has come under fire after he hailed Azerbaijan for being able to ‘liberate’ territory – in an ongoing conflict widely viewed as an ethnic cleansing operation – in a recent Substack post. Lammy took to his blog to express his unsolicited musings about

Because you read about david bowie

Also by Simon Ings

Latest

Comments

Join the debate for free — this month only

This month, be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for free. We’ll also give you three months’ free digital access to the Telegraph.

Already a subscriber? Log in