An East Carolina University biologist, Jason Bond, discovered a new species of trapdoor spider and opted to call the arachnid after his favorite musician, Canadian Neil Young, naming it Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi."There are rather strict rules about how you name new species," Bond said in a statement."As long as these rules are followed you can give a new species just about any name you please. With regards to Neil Young, I really enjoy his music and have had a great appreciation of him as an activist for peace and justice."Young, 62, is a veteran rock musician who rose to fame in the 1960s with the band Buffalo Springfield and later became a member of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, whose 1970 release "Deja Vu" has become a classic rock album.The singer/songwriter, whose solo work ranges from older albums such as "Harvest" to newer CDs like "Living with War," has long been an activist for social and anti-war causes.Bond discovered the new spider species in Jefferson County, Alabama, in 2007. He said spiders in the trapdoor genus, who tend to live in burrows and build trap doors to seal off their living quarters, are distinguished from one species to the next on the basis of differences in genitalia.He confirmed through the spider's DNA that the Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi is an identifiable, separate species of spider within the trapdoor genus.Young is not the first musician to have a creature named after him. A species of beetle that looks as if it is wearing a tuxedo -- the whirligig beetle, or Orectochilus orbisonorum -- was named earlier this year after the late rock 'n' roll legend Roy Orbison and his widow Barbara.This Week in Pop Culture
Sept. 24, 2005: Ashton Kutcher, the star of such epic films as 'Dude, Where's My Car?' and 'The Butterfly Effect,' marries Kabbalist cougar Demi Moore in Beverly Hills, before roughly 100 friends and family, including Moore's ex-husband, Bruce Willis. (OK!/AP)
Sept. 26, 1957: Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet' returns to Broadway, this time as Leonard Bernstein's 'West Side Story.' The retelling of the classic love story will run for 734 performances and produce such classic songs as 'Somewhere' and 'America.' (Everett Collection)
Sept. 29, 1984: With 'Let's Go Crazy' joining both the album and film 'Purple Rain' at No. 1, Prince becomes only the second artist to simultaneously top the song, album and movie charts in the U.S. (Everett Collection)
Sept. 27, 1954: 'The Tonight Show,' hosted by Steve Allen, makes its television debut. The show will become the second-longest running entertainment program in TV history, trailing only 'Guiding Light.' (Bettmann/Corbis)
Sept. 26, 1955: Debbie Reynolds weds crooner Eddie Fisher, a union that will last until Fisher falls under the spell of Elizabeth Taylor four years later. Luckily, the couple is together long enough to produce son Todd Fisher and daughter, Carrie "Princess Leia" Fisher. (WireImage.com/LucasFilms/ZUMA)
Sept. 30, 2006: Love is in the air as Amanda Peet marries screenwriter David Benioff in New York City, while 1,348 miles away, Isaac Hanson, the eldest brother from the band Hanson, weds Nicole Dufresne in Tulsa, Okla. (Getty/WireImage.com)
Sept. 29, 2005: Two weeks after photos of her doing lines of cocaine are splashed across the front page of the British tabloid the Daily Mirror, supermodel Kate Moss checks into the $4,000-a-night Meadows Clinic in Wickenberg, Ariz., where she is said tostay for 30 days. (Getty Images)
Sept. 25, 1990: Underwhelmed by drummer Chad Channing, Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic of Nirvana invite Dave Grohl to join the band. Later that year they record the landmark album 'Nevermind.' (WireImage.com)
Sept. 29, 2001: Jennifer Lopez marries dancer Cris Judd, whom she'd met on the set of her video for 'Love Don't Cost a Thing.' The union will begin to sour when she is handed a bouquet of flowers from Ben Affleck while Judd and the paparazzi look on at the opening of Madre's, her restaurant in Pasadena, Calif. (Getty Images)
Sept. 26, 2003: Singer Robert Palmer,former frontman for the band Power Station, dies of a heart attack in Paris at the age of 54. (Retna)
Foreclosure on Jackson’s Ranch Averted
