5 Fascinating Animals Named After Disney Characters

Scientists often draw inspiration from pop culture when naming newly discovered organisms, from the Lord of the Rings to Taylor Swift and beyond. Here are five whose monikers hail from the wonderful world of Disney.

1. Maratus nemo
2. Epicratinus stitch
3. Endodrelanva jimini
4. Helobdella buzz
5. Bambiraptor feinbergi

Maratus nemo

In 2020, Sheryl Holliday, an ecological field officer for South Australia’s Nature Glenelg Trust, shared images of some spiders in a Facebook group devoted to Australian jumping spiders. One type had an unfamiliar orange face, so Holliday had a feeling it might be a new species. Another member of the group, Museums Victoria arachnologist Joseph Schubert, studied Holliday’s specimens and confirmed her suspicion: It was a previously unidentified species of peacock spider (Maratus) in the jumping spider family (Salticidae). 

“It had a really vibrant orange face with white stripes on it, which kind of looks like a clown fish, so I thought Nemo would be a really suitable name for it,” he said in a Museums Victoria feature on Maratus nemo. Holliday found the moniker especially apt since she “was doing some fish sampling” when she discovered the spider.

Epicratinus stitch

Another Disney-inspired arachnid is Epicratinus stitch, an ant-eating spider (Zodariidae) first found in Bahia, Brazil. Scientists thought the females’ spermathecae—the reproductive organs where sperm is stored—looked like Stitch’s ears.

Endodrelanva jimini

Endodrelanva jimini may lack the top hat and tailcoat of its namesake, Jiminy Cricket, but at least it’s a cricket. Researchers christened the new species—reddish brown and native to Singapore—after the Pinocchio character in 2016. (Technically, Disney didn’t create him from scratch: The 1940 film was based on Carlo Collodi’s 19th-century children’s book The Adventures of Pinocchio. In the book, though, the cricket just goes by “the Talking Cricket.” Disney renamed him after the mild oath Jiminy cricket, which has been around since the mid-1800s.)

Helobdella buzz

Helobdella buzz is a species of leech first found in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. What sets it apart from its closest relatives is the makeup of a lump of skin protruding from the back of its neck area. The researchers explained in 2017 that the “size and location” of this protrusion “resemble an astronaut helmet, as that of Buzz Lightyear.” You can reserve the right to disagree.

Bambiraptor feinbergi

In 1994, 14-year-old Wes Linster unearthed the skeleton of a new kind of dinosaur on a Montana ranch. He and his family nicknamed it “Bambi” because it was small—roughly three feet long, tail included. Scientists preserved the moniker in the official taxonomy for the species: Bambiraptor feinbergi. (The species name is a nod to the Feinberg family, who purchased the skeleton to give to Florida’s Graves Museum of Archaeology and Natural History.) Beyond its name, Bambiraptor doesn’t share much with its eponymous cartoon fawn: It was a bird-like creature covered in feathers. That said, neither Bambi could fly. (Similar to Jiminy Cricket, Bambi wasn’t invented by Disney: The 1942 film was based on Felix Salten’s 1923 novel Bambi: A Life in the Woods. But sources generally identify the Disney version as the inspiration for Bambiraptor.)

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