How long until all species are named after David Attenborough?

When he was a boy, Sir David Attenborough supposedly had an impressive collection of fossils. These days, the 90-year-old naturalist and broadcaster could probably demand a corner of the Natural History Museum devoted solely to the fossils named after him.

As of this week, those include the Cascolus ravitis, a 430m-year-old fossilised shrimp from Herefordshire. (“Cascolus” is the Latin version of the Old English equivalent of “Attenborough”.) “The biggest compliment that a biologist or palaeontologist can pay to another one is to name a fossil in his honour,” Sir David told the BBC.

He would know. At least four other long-extinct creatures already bear his name: Microleo attenboroughi, an 18m-year-old marsupial lion from north-west Queensland; Materpiscis attenboroughi, a 380m-year-old fish from the Gogo formation, an ancient reef in Western Australia; Electrotettix attenboroughi, a pygmy locust found preserved in 20m-year-old amber in the Dominican Republic; and Attenborosaurus conybeare, a Loch Ness Monster-like aquatic beastie from the Jurassic era.

After inspiring several generations of naturalists, it’s no surprise that Attenborough is regularly flattered by the taxonomists. He also has enough still-living species named after him to fill a small – if extremely specialist – wildlife park. This month, a newly discovered Andean rubber frog was called Pristimantis attenboroughi, weeks after the naming of the Attenborougharion rubicundus, a brightly coloured semi-slug found only in a remote corner of Tasmania.

That’s not to mention the endangered Indonesian echidna, the 1mm goblin spider, the Amazonian butterfly, the flightless weevil, the Filipino pitcher plant, the Ecuadorian tree and the flower in Gabon that all bear versions of his name. In 2015, he was honoured with his first living species in the UK, a wildflower from south Wales called Attenborough’s hawkweed, or Hieracium attenboroughianum.

In 2016, the venerable TV personality also lent his name to the research vessel the RRS Sir David Attenborough, although the boat is still known better by the name chosen for it in a public poll: Boaty McBoatface.