A Newly-Discovered Sea Creature Has Been Named After Metallica

It's finally happened, guys: Metallica have well and truly made it. Forget their millions of albums sold and incredible success over the last 40 years – the band have just reached their greatest achievement yet: a newly-discovered deep-sea crustacean has been named after them. About time, right?

According to Phys.org, the metal heroes were given the honour by Senckenberg researcher Dr. Torben Riehl and his colleague Dr. Bart De Smet from Belgium's Ghent University, with Torben discovering the "worm-like" creature in the northern Pacific and deciding to name it Macrostylis metallicola after one of his favourite bands.

"The powerful music of Metallica has accompanied me the majority of my life," says Torben. "Songs such as Master of Puppets and One are outstanding masterpieces in rock history and I am thrilled to be able to give something back to the band by naming a new species after them!"

Read this next: How the video for Metallica's One left me scarred for life

Understandably, the band themselves were equally as chuffed with the news, posting:

"We’ve played on all seven continents, made it into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and now… we’re a crustacean! Senckenberg researcher Dr. Torben Riehl and Dr. Bart De Smet of Ghent University in Belgium have discovered a new crustacean species in the depths of the northern Pacifica Ocean and decided to name it after some rock band… Welcome to our world Macrostylis metallicola!

"First of all, stellar name Dr. Riehl. Second, what an honor! Not only did Dr. Riehn name his discovery after a band as he has been a fan since childhood, The Thing That Should Not Be has a few things in common with us. The worm-like creature dwells in complete darkness, has no eyes, and is colorless. Talk about Blackened! It also lives amongst metallic nodules containing cobalt, copper, manganese, nickel, and rare-earth elements. So it basically lives in a rock stadium? Now that’s one metal crustacean!

"You just never know what you’ll find 'lurking beneath the sea…'"

To view this content, view the full mobile website.

Catch Metallica (presumably without their new deep-sea buddy) live at the following dates this year:

May

1-3 Epicenter – Concord, North Carolina
8-10 Welcome To Rockville – Daytona Beach, Florida

October

9-11 Aftershock – Sacramento, California

Read this next: 12 things you might not know about Cliff Burton