There have been plenty of touching tributes to beloved Motörhead frontman and true rock icon Lemmy Kilmister in the years since his passing, but we can think of few better than naming a deadly prehistoric beast after him.
As Billboard reports, that’s what researchers have done with a specimen at London’s Natural History Museum, “one of the nastiest sea creatures to have ever inhabited the earth”, which they have now renamed ‘Lemmysuchus obtusidens’ after the man who embodied rock ‘n’ roll.
The fossil was apparently dug up in England back in the early 20th century, and given the wrong categorisation, placing it in among the other sea crocs found locally.
Having taken a better look at the creature recently, they realised it needed a new classification, and museum curator Lorna Steel let her love for Lemmy dictate the name, adding “we’d like to think that he would have raised a glass to Lemmysuchus.”
A fitting tribute to one of the hardest-living beasts in rock history, coming hot on the heels of Motörhead’s cover of David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’, one of Lemmy’s last recordings.
“It’s such a great Bowie song, one of his best, and I could only see great things coming out of it from us, and so it proved to be and Lemmy ended up loving our version,” Motörhead’s guitarist Phil Campbell said. “We were happy with them at the time and we’re happy with them now!”
The track is taken from the band’s upcoming Under Cöver compilation, their first release since Lemmy’s death in 2015, which will feature a range of covers recorded from 1992 onwards.
