How dare you! Climate-sensitive snail named after Greta Thunberg

In addition to Time magazine’s Person of the Year and a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize, teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg has received a new accolade from the scientific community, and it’s something.

To mark all of her achievements, a team of researchers has decided to endow her with arguably the greatest honor of all: they... erm... named a snail after her. 

The ‘Craspedotropis gretathunbergae’ is a new species of temperature-sensitive land snail discovered by Taxon expeditions in the forests of Borneo. 

“The newly described snail belongs to the so-called caenogastropods, a group of land snails known to be sensitive to drought, temperature extremes and forest degradation,” said snail expert Menno Schilthuizen, co-founder of Taxon. 

Greta is apparently “delighted” to have the snail named after her, the team claims. 

“Naming this snail after Greta Thunberg is our way of acknowledging that her generation will be responsible for fixing problems that they did not create,” said J.P. Lim, who found the first specimen of the species. 

It’s not the first tiny creature named after the climate crusader, who previously had a beetle named after her.

While many stunninglyoriginal online comedians repeated the same joke ad nauseam saying, “I can see the resemblance,” or something to that effect, others opted instead for the trusty GIF to express their feelings about the discovery and its connection with the child climate activist.

Inevitably, Thunberg’s own viral moment was among the most popular reactions to the news.

Like this story? Share it with a friend!