In a move expressing India’s love for cricket and as a gesture of a fan's love for his favourite cricketer, a newly-discovered species of Spider has been named “Marengo Sachin Tendulkar” after India’s Master Blaster cricketer Sachin Tendulkar.
Finally it is published after long waiting period!!
— Dhruv Prajapati (@Dhruv_spidy) November 10, 2019
Two new jumping spiders from India!
First one is Marengo sachintendulkar named after my favourite cricketer, Master Blaster @sachin_rt (The God of Cricket). pic.twitter.com/aIXBGe05qz
Dhruv Prajapati, a junior researcher with the Gujarat Ecological Education and Research (GEER) Foundation, pursuing a PhD in Spider Taxonomy (the branch of science concerned with classification, especially of organisms), discovered two new species of arthropods.
He named one of them Saint Kuriakose Elias Chavara, after an Indian Catholic priest and social reformer who worked on raising education awareness in India’s coastal state of Kerala.
“I named (one spider) Marengo Sachin Tendulkar because Sachin happens to be my favourite cricketer," Prajapati was quoted as saying by the Indian Daily, Times of India.
"Another name was inspired by Saint Kuriakose Elias Chavara who was a crusader in creating awareness about education in Kerala," he added.
The reactions on Twitter were heart-warming.
It's great to see the name sachin Tendulkar on a spider
— rv10_patel (@ravipatel_2810) November 12, 2019
😂😂 taking cricket obsession to another level . Well done brother . Agli new species mile to Kohli ke naam rakh Dena 😉😉
— Nishant shrivas (@Nishant74660511) November 11, 2019
The 46-year-old Tendulkar, who has retired from cricket, is India’s master batsman. The cricketer is the first player to score 10,000 runs in One Day International (ODI) cricket, and the highest run-scorer in ODI cricket. He is also the laureate of the highest civilian award in India, the Bharat Ratna, local reports say.
This is not the first incident where animals or insects have been named after cricketers. In July 2019, two rescued sloth bears were named after former Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni and former Captain of the Indian Women’s cricket team Mithali Raj.
#SOS #Bear #Name #Dhoni #Bannerghatta #TNIE
— Amit Upadhye (@Amitsen_TNIE) July 12, 2019
An orphaned sloth bear rescued from Karnataka was named after cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni. The bear is currently housed in a wildlife SOS facility in Bannerghatta Biological Park in Bengaluru @XpressBengaluru pic.twitter.com/9uyiOPiyIX
Interestingly, both Mahi and Mithali (sloth bears) respond to their names when called by animal keepers, according to media reports.
