When you discover a new organism, you get to name it — but not for yourself. There are rules to the naming business in biology. You can, however, name it for the sponsor of your research. When Chris Hittinger and his group of yeast researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found a rather aggressive yeast, it was natural to name it for the fierce carnivore that is the mascot of his home institution: Bucky Badger.

And so Blastobotrys buckinghamii emerged from the soil of Michigan's Upper Peninsula to become one of approximately 1,500 known species of yeast. "It was the most aggressive of the eight new species we found," Hittinger says, "and we thought it was appropriate to name it for Bucky Badger, as it reminded us of Bucky charging down the field."