Fossilized Worm Named After KING DIAMOND

A Swedish scientist who made headlines in 2006 when he named a 428-million-year-old fossilized worm (a marine polychaete annelid worm) after MOTÖRHEAD frontman Lemmy Kilmister, has discovered a new fossil (see image below) and has christened it Kingnites diamondi in honor of the legendary Danish heavy metal singer King Diamond.

Dr. Mats E. Eriksson, Associate Professor of Paleontology - Department of Geology at Lund University in Lund, Sweden explains: "A cirka 420 million year old fossil organism was recently discovered from Silurian rocks of Sweden and Estonia. It is the remains of a marine worm with jaws. The critter was baptized Kingnites diamondi in honour of Danish metal maestro King Diamond. So, in addition to his obvious place in the history of heavy metal music, Diamond now also has left an eternal imprint in science. Father of this fossil is Mats Eriksson, a metal-loving professor of paleontology from Sweden."

According to GFF, a Scandinavian journal of Earth Sciences, "The polychaete annelid Kingnites diamondi, a new paulinitid genus and species, is described from the Silurian of Baltoscandia. Its large maxillae differ morphologically from those of all other known paulinitids, particularly in being very elongate and having conspicuous myocoele openings and posterior portions of the first maxillae (MI). Albeit rare, this polychaete taxon is highly characteristic and appears to be confined to the Wenlock–Ludlow transitional interval on Gotland, Sweden, and ranges into the upper Ludlow on Saaremaa, Estonia. All samples yielding this species derive from strata formed in proximal carbonate platform environments. The temporal and geographical distribution indicates that it first appeared in Gotland and subsequently spread north-eastwards to the present-day Saaremaa. Kingnites diamondi adds to the list of known members of the Paulinitidae and reinforces the importance of this family, in terms of abundance and diversity, in Silurian polychaete faunas of Baltica. This is the biggest paulinitid recorded from the Silurian with an inferred body length of approximately half a metre and its diagnostic jaws may serve as a proxy for shallow water, backreef (marginal marine to lagoonal) environments."