Actress and singer Jennifer Lopez has had her share of awards and honors for top movies and music, but the actress/singer has a new honor as of late: a water mite found in Puerto Rico has been named after her.
The water mite, known as a tick who thrives in water, has been scientifically termed “Litarachna Lopezae,” and the mite’s name is a result of researchers who listened to Lopez’s music while writing up their research for publication. Lopez herself was born and raised in New York’s The Bronx, but she is Nuyorican and has Puerto Rican heritage despite her American-born life.
University of Montenegro biologist Vladimir Pesic said that he and the research team were watching the World Cup while listening to J. Lo songs such as “Ain’t It Funny” and his favorite, “All I Have.” While the research team had different loyalties when it came to World Cup teams, all of the research team wanted to listen to Jennifer Lopez.
Jennifer Lopez is not the only celebrity to have ever received the “honor” of naming an insect; Mick Jagger’s name was given to a trilobite, a Caribbean marine parasite was named after Bob Marley, and Bono gave his name to a spider.
The team discovered the Jennifer Lopez mite near a Mona Passage coral reef at 230 feet deep – setting a new record for the depth of study to recover pontarachnid mites. The full study to find water mites took place in a two-year study, from 2010 to 2012.
