Neptune’s heart is Britain’s largest sea squirt, zipperback is a Welsh hover fly with a striking pattern on its back and gangly lancer is an underwater spider that uses a straw-like proboscis to suck out nourishment from its prey.

Previously, these organisms and seven others had no common monikers and were only known by their Latin names. Natural England asked the public to come up with new titles for these underappreciated British species, and received over 6,000 entries to pick through.

The overall winner, though, was “hotlips.” Octospora humosa is a disc-shaped fungus that shoots out highly-pressurised spores. Its shocking orange colour and frequent resemblance to puckered lips led 12-year-old Rachael Blackman to name the mushroom hotlips.

“The fact that a 12 year-old girl won the Name a Species competition puts paid to the lie that today’s young generation are not interested in nature,” said Adam Vaughan, editor of the Guardian’s environment section, which sponsored the competition.

“By dubbing a fungus with the witty, memorable and salient name of ‘hotlips’, Rachael Blackman has probably done more for the conservation of Octospora humosa than any naturalist before her.”

You can see the new names for all ten species, including the shimmering ruby-tail, sunburst lichen and serpent’s table brittlestar at Natural England’s winning names page.

Source: Wired UK

Image: Hotlips. (Thomas Læssøe/MycoKey)

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