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McKenzie Prillaman<\/p>\n
| Assistant Digital Editor, Science & Innovation<\/span><\/p>\n May 7, 2026 4:07 p.m.<\/time><\/p><\/div>\n<\/section><\/div>\n<\/header>\n\n \n About 50 organisms have been named for David Attenborough or elements of his legacy, from an orchid to a marine worm to one of the earliest known predators.Illustration by Emily Lankiewicz \/ Full credit at bottom of article<\/span>David Attenborough begins the documentary segment by describing the remarkable success of jungle ants. In only about 2.5 acres of land, he explains, as many as eight million of the insects could live and thrive.<\/p>\n
But an eerie sound signals that something is about to change. Spores of the parasitic fungus Cordyceps<\/em>, Attenborough reveals, have taken over the onscreen creatures\u2019 minds and are acting as puppeteers, forcing the ants to travel upward. Eventually, one ant stills, and the fruiting body of the fungus erupts from its head.<\/p>\nThis famous portion of an episode of BBC\u2019s \u201cPlanet Earth\u201d came out in 2006 and changed the trajectory of mycologist Jo\u00e3o Ara\u00fajo\u2019s career. Attenborough \u201cwas the most influential person to inspire me to switch from mushrooms to Cordyceps<\/em>,\u201d says Ara\u00fajo, of the Natural History Museum of Denmark.<\/p>\nIn part because of this connection, Ara\u00fajo and his colleagues decided to name a fungus that zombifies cave spiders after the naturalist, dubbing it Gibellula attenboroughii<\/em> in a paper published last year. <\/em><\/p>\nG. attenboroughii<\/em> is one of the latest of about 50 organisms\u2014including plants, beetles and birds\u2014to gain an eponym that honors Attenborough, one of the most famous broadcasters and naturalists of all time. Scientists across the globe recognize his voice, after he took them on journeys through the TV screen that inspired them to explore and conserve the natural world.<\/p>\nTo celebrate Attenborough\u2019s 100th birthday on May 8, here are ten of those living (or once living) things that bear his name.<\/p>\n
Parasitic fungus: Gibellula attenboroughii<\/em><\/h2>\n\n \n A spider covered in a zombifying fungus, which looks like whitish fuzz.<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Tim Fogg<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nSome species of orb-weaving spiders spend their days hidden away in dark corners of caves. But when the parasitic fungus G. attenboroughii<\/em> takes over their bodies, it forces the reclusive arachnids out into the open. They take a death march to their final resting spots, typically ending up on rocky walls or moss near cave entrances. That\u2019s probably so that the hosts die in drier areas with more airflow, which helps disperse the fungal spores to new victims.<\/p>\nScientists reported the newly discovered species in January 2025, but they weren\u2019t the ones who first spotted it. In 2021, a film team working on the BBC \u201cWinterwatch\u201d nature documentary series saw a dead spider covered in whitish fuzz on the ceiling of an abandoned gunpowder store in Northern Ireland. Since then, researchers have found the freaky fungus elsewhere in the United Kingdom and in the Republic of Ireland.<\/p>\n
The zombifying species was named after Attenborough because he played a pivotal role in developing the BBC\u2019s natural history unit, \u201cleading, indirectly, to the present nature series during which the new species was first discovered,\u201d Harry Evans, a mycologist at the environmental nonprofit Center for Agriculture and Biosciences International who worked on the paper describing the fungus with Ara\u00fajo, said in a 2025 statement.<\/p>\n
Fossil bird: Imparavis attenboroughi<\/em><\/h2>\n\n \n This fossil bird was unlike many others that lived during its time\u2014it lacked teeth.<\/p>\n
X. Wang et al., Cretaceous Research<\/em>, 2024<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nAround 120 million years ago, a little bird\u2014odd-looking among those of its time\u2014flitted around the skies of what\u2019s now northeastern China. Unlike the feathered creatures alive today, many early avians had beaks full of tiny, razor-sharp teeth. Not this one.<\/p>\n\n \n An illustration of how\u00a0\u201cAttenborough\u2019s strange bird\u201d might have looked in its day<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Ville Sinkkonen<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThe prehistoric animal belonged to a now-extinct group of proto-birds called enantiornithines, known as \u201copposite birds\u201d for their shoulder joints that are reversed from those of birds today. Before the mass extinction that killed all non-avian dinosaurs, toothlessness did eventually evolve in opposite birds. But a fossil described in 2024 pushed back the timeline by about 48 million years. Researchers named the newfound creature Imparavis attenboroughi<\/em>, which translates to \u201cAttenborough\u2019s strange bird.\u201d<\/p>\nStudy co-author Alex Clark, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago and Field Museum, grew up watching the BBC\u2019s \u201cTrials of Life\u201d series, hosted by Attenborough. \u201cI most likely wouldn\u2019t be in the natural sciences if it weren\u2019t for David Attenborough\u2019s documentaries,\u201d he said in a statement when the paper was published.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn some form, [Attenborough has] either shaped people\u2019s perspective on the natural world, or he\u2019s been this huge voice for waking up to the issues that are happening globally with the planet,\u201d Clark told the Chicago Sun-Times<\/em>\u2019 Erica Thompson in 2024.<\/p>\nMarine worm: Marphysa davidattenboroughi<\/em><\/h2>\n\n \n This iridescent marine worm lives in sediment near southeast Australia.<\/p>\n
Leon Altoff \/ Marine Research Group of the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nOff the coast of southeast Australia, a roughly three-inch-long marine worm that shimmers in rainbow colors lies buried in sediment. It has two tiny eyes, five antennae and a segmented body lined with red, bristle-like gills filled with blood. Its rosy hue marks it as a member of a group called bloodworms\u2014mostly carnivorous ocean creepy-crawlies with lots of hemoglobin, the protein that gives blood a crimson color.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re not the most beautiful animals on Earth, but they are important,\u201d says Nicolas Lavesque, a taxonomist at the French National Center for Scientific Research. All kinds of marine worms live in the ocean, where they play important roles in food webs. Many recreational fishers use bloodworms as bait.<\/p>\n
In 2023, Lavesque and his colleagues described the iridescent Australian species and named it Marphysa davidattenboroughi.<\/em> Attenborough \u201cis undoubtedly one of the people who inspired me to become a biologist,\u201d Lavesque says. He even sent the paper to the famous naturalist, who responded with a handwritten letter to thank the team for honoring him.<\/p>\nNow, Friday nights for Lavesque often involve a cozy meal at home with his tween children and a documentary narrated by Attenborough.<\/p>\n
When Lavesque showed the broadcaster\u2019s note to his kids, he says, \u201cthey were jumping all over the house shouting, \u2018Mom, he\u2019s replied to Dad! David Attenborough has sent a letter!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Miniature orchid: Lepanthes attenboroughii<\/em><\/h2>\n\n \n These two orchids were long thought to be one species. But an investigation into their structures revealed major differences. The one on the right is L. attenboroughii<\/em>.<\/p>\n J. Yeager et al., Phytotaxa<\/em>, 2022. Photos by Ron Parsons<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nFor years, botanists mistook a tiny orchid for another closely related species. Both varieties have yellow and maroon striped petals that form dime-size, balloon-shaped flowers. But orchid researcher Luis Baquero, of the University of the Americas in Ecuador, thought that some of the plants sported rounder blossoms.<\/p>\n
Upon investigation, he and his colleagues found clear structural differences. The previously described species, for instance, had a specialized internal petal that was smaller than that of the newly identified one. Baquero and his team described the novel orchid species in a 2022 study and dubbed it Lepanthes attenboroughii. <\/em><\/p>\nThe team traced some of these orchids from museum and private collections to their origin at a nursery in Ecuador, where workers claimed the plants were native to the western Andes mountains, near the country\u2019s border with Colombia. But the species had rarely been seen in the wild, and in 2025 the researchers published a genetic investigation that traced it instead to a restricted part of the eastern Andes, from southern Colombia to Peru.<\/p>\n
That discrepancy is \u201cworrying,\u201d because the International Union for Conservation of Nature\u2014which guides conservation measures\u2014requires clear documentation of where at-risk plants grow, Baquero says. \u201cIf this is happening more times, very threatened species could be not correctly assessed\u201d by the organization, he adds, leading to insufficient protections. L.<\/em> attenboroughii<\/em> currently has too little data to be assessed for the IUCN\u2019s threatened species list.<\/p>\nBecause Attenborough is an iconic science communicator and has done a lot of conservation work around issues like this, Baquero says, \u201cwe thought [L.<\/em> attenboroughii<\/em>] was a good name.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
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Did you know? So nice, knighted twice<\/p>\n
For his contributions to television broadcasting and conservation, Attenborough was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1985. In 2022, he received an even higher honor, the Knight Grand Cross.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Fossil cnidarian: Auroralumina attenboroughii<\/em><\/h2>\n\n \n A cast of the first discovered fossil of\u00a0Auroralumina attenboroughii<\/em><\/p>\n F. S. Dunn et al., Nature Ecology & Evolution<\/em>, 2022<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n \n This cnidarian was an ancient, predatory animal related to modern-day jellyfish, corals and sea anemones.<\/p>\n
F. S. Dunn et al., Nature Ecology & Evolution<\/em>, 2022<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nWhile it might not look like a fearsome predator, a roughly 560-million-year-old jellyfish ancestor may have been one of the first meat-eating animals. A fossil discovered in England holds a roughly eight-inch-tall impression of the creature in its polyp stage, the part of its life cycle when it was stuck to the ocean floor. The specimen preserves a stalk that branches into two arms, and atop each is a goblet-like structure containing tentacles that were probably used to nab small prey that swam by.<\/p>\n
This fossil is special because it\u2019s \u201cthe oldest animal that we can confidently say belongs to any living animal group,\u201d says Frankie Dunn, a paleontologist at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.<\/p>\n
The creature was a cnidarian, one of a group of invertebrates whose modern-day members include jellyfish, corals and sea anemones. But the long-extinct ancient cnidarians, which predate more complex animals, can teach us about evolution, Dunn says. \u201cFiguring out when they appeared is important for understanding how modern animal diversity was assembled and what early animal ecosystems looked like.\u201d<\/p>\n\n \n Attenborough highlighted the Charnwood Forest in the documentary series \u201cFirst Life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nature on PBS, BBC \u201cFirst Life\u201d under fair use<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nPaleontologists found the specimen in 2007 in England\u2019s Charnwood Forest, famed for its spectacular fossils from the Ediacaran period, when some multicellular life was beginning to evolve around 539 million to 635 million years ago. Attenborough grew up exploring the site and has raised awareness of its scientific importance. So, Dunn and her colleagues named the archaic animal Auroralumina attenboroughii<\/em> when they reported it in 2022.<\/p>\nPhytoplankton: Syracosphaera azureaplaneta<\/em><\/h2>\n\n \n This single-celled organism lives in the ocean and turns sunlight into food. It\u2019s covered in bowl-shaped shields called coccoliths.<\/p>\n
University College London<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nPhytoplankton are tiny but mighty single-celled organisms that act somewhat like plants. Among the most well-known phytoplankton are coccolithophores, which float in the ocean\u2019s upper layers and absorb sunlight to help produce their own food. Each cell is a few thousandths of a millimeter wide and surrounded by dozens of bowl-shaped shields of calcite, called coccoliths.<\/p>\n
The organisms are crucial components of the base of marine food webs, and they produce oxygen and remove carbon from the atmosphere. But the coccolith-making process also generates carbon dioxide, so they have a complicated relationship with the environment and climate change.<\/p>\n
In 2018, researchers noted differences in coccolith shapes within one species. The largest, outermost shields on some organisms, for instance, were rounder and had wider central divots than others did. While the distinctions are subtle, they are consistent and have no intermediates, hinting at two separate species, says Jeremy Young, a micropaleontologist at University College London.<\/p>\n\n \n Comparison of the outermost coccoliths on the newly identified species, S. azureaplaneta<\/em>, and the previously found species, S. corolla<\/em><\/p>\n J. Young et al., Journal of Nannoplankton Research<\/em>, 2018<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nYoung and his colleagues named the new discovery Syracosphaera azureaplaneta<\/em>\u2014from Latin for \u201cblue planet\u201d\u2014to recognize the Attenborough-presented BBC series with the same name, which has promoted an \u201cunderstanding of the marine realm,\u201d the study authors write.<\/p>\nMost people would be \u201castonished\u201d to hear that phytoplankton are \u201cmore important to our atmosphere than the whole of the rainforest,\u201d Attenborough said in 2018 when he was told about the new species\u2019 name, per BBC News\u2019 David Shukman.<\/p>\n
What did he think of S<\/em>. azureaplaneta<\/em>? \u201cThey\u2019re stunning; they\u2019re beautiful,\u201d he said.<\/p>\nFossil crustacean: Cascolus ravitis<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n
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3D Animation of Cascolus ravitis a 430 Million-Year-Old Fossil<\/p>\n
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