Tom Hardy\u2019s Venom inspires name for new genus of Australian spider Sony PicturesAustralian scientists have named a new species of spider after Spider-Man villain Venom and the actor who played him, Tom Hardy. Naming things in the scientific context is an important part of the process. The naming of a species is essential in identifying and understanding the species, and the name alone can communicate a lot of information to scientists. That doesn\u2019t mean things have to be boring, though. In fact, several names chosen by scientists are just fun jokes about pop culture, other animals, or even the scientists themselves. Comic book characters are fairly common picks for naming inspiration, which shouldn\u2019t be surprising given how many comic book superheroes are modeled after animals. Now, Australian scientists have named a new spider after a popular Marvel anti-hero. Australian scientists name a new orb-weaver spider species after Marvel\u2019s Venom Dubbed Venomius Tomhardyi, the new species of orb-weaver is named after Spider-Man\u2019s arch-nemesis and occasional ally, Venom. In a journal published on the open-access resource Evolutionary Systematics, scientists say the species is \u201cnamed after the Marvel Comics\u2019 character \u2018Venom,\u2019 created by David Michelinie and Todd McFarlane, whose full first appearance was in \u2018The Amazing Spider-Man #300\u2019 (published in May 1988), after an alien symbiote bonded with the character Eddie Brock.\u201d The species received its name because of black spots across its abdomen. The scientists felt the spots were reminiscent of Venom\u2019s design. While the Genus name has comic book inspirations, the new species Venomius Tomhardyi is also named for English actor Tom Hardy, who portrayed the character in two big screen outings \u2013 Venom and Venom: Let There Be Carnage \u2013 as well as a cameo in Spider-Man: No Way Home. He\u2019ll be reprising the role for an upcoming third film. It\u2019s not uncommon to see a new species named after a comic book character. In 2020, several new species of Australian robber flies were named after Marvel characters, including Deadpool, Thor, and Black Widow, as well as Stan Lee himself. Multiple species are also named after Batman, including a species of catfish and a species of wasp. Ironically, the Venomius tomhardyi marks the first Spider-Man character to have a species named after it. There have, however, been two species of spider \u2013 Filistata maguirei and Pritha garfieldi- named after Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, respectively. Ironically, the naming of the Venomius tomhardyi coincides with the anniversary of Venom\u2019s debut in Amazing Spider-Man #300, which was recently announced to be receiving a facsimile reprint. For more Venom and comic book news, be sure to follow all our coverage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tom Hardy\u2019s Venom inspires name for new genus of Australian spider Sony PicturesAustralian scientists have named a new species of spider after Spider-Man villain Venom and the actor who played him, Tom Hardy. Naming things in the scientific context is an important part of the process. The naming of a species is essential in identifying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35697\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}