A Tapeworm To Call My Own

Long after I'm dead, there will be stingrays swimming the Arafura Sea infested with tapeworms that bear my name.

There are about 1.8 million species with names, out of an estimated 8 to 9 million species in total.  In 2007 alone, scientists named 18516 new species. Naming a species is actually the final step in a long, slow journey. It starts with the discovery of an organism that looks like it just might not belong to any known species. Scientists then search the scientific literature to see if