Newly discovered spider species named after Jay Chou songs

Chinese pop singer Jay Chou is renowned for his musical versatility, with his songs bringing to mind romance, nostalgia and the charm of traditional culture. However, when his fans listen to his songs these days, they might bring something new to mind: spiders.

A recent scientific paper, featured in an international academic journal, has thrilled music lovers in China by naming 16 newly discovered spiders after iconic songs by the 45-year-old pop star.

These new spider species, belonging to six genera, were discovered at the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Yunnan province. To date, 920 spider species have been identified within this 11-square-kilometer garden, which is known as one of the most spider-diverse places in the world.

The names of the spiders include "anjing" (silence), "longquan" (dragon fist), "yequ" (nocturne), "caihong" (rainbow) and "daoxiang" (rice field). The researchers recorded them in Chinese pinyin in a paper published in the journal Zoological Research: Diversity and Conservation last month.

Lead researcher Li Shuqiang, from the CAS Institute of Zoology, told Xinhua that his teammates, born between the 1980s and 2000s, are avid fans of the singer and songwriter from the Taiwan region, "having grown up listening to his music". They enjoy listening to his songs in their spare time, which led them to unanimously decide to name the spider species after 16 of Chou's songs.

Regarding which spider was given a particular title, Li explained that they were chosen randomly, with no relation to the features of the spiders.

Mi Xiaoqi, the first author of the study and a professor at Tongren University in Guizhou province, is an admirer of Jay Chou. Almost the same age as the musician, the researcher said that he used to name his discoveries based on animals' morphological features, but in 2022 due to a name coinciding with previous research by other authors, his paper was not published successfully.

"Since then I have been very cautious about naming spiders," Mi said. "Given that many of my peers rely on morphological characteristics for naming, this time I chose to use a different approach to avoid repetition."