Scissor-handed Prehistoric Creature Named After Johnny Depp
by ABC News staff
The science world has paid homage to Johnny Depp by giving his name to an extinct creepy-crawly with “scissor hand-like” claws reminiscent of one of the actor’s best-known roles.
Kooteninchela deppi was a 505-million-year-old distant ancestor of lobsters and scorpions, according to a study in the Journal of Palaeontology.
It has been named for Depp’s famous portrayal of a gentle freak named Edward Scissorhands in the 1990 eponymous film.
The animal was about four-centimetres long with millipede-like legs. It lived in shallow seas off the coast of British Columbia in Canada during a much hotter period in Earth’s history. It was probably a hunter or scavenger, using its claws with their elongated spines to capture prey or probe the sea floor for creatures in hiding…
(read more: ABC News - Australia)
(image: K. deppi; via: Journal of Paleontology)
