November 28, 2005 6:50 PM PST
An ant named after Google
Google has already had a newborn child named after it. Now it's a species of ant.
"Entomologist Brian Fisher named a new species of ant, Proceratium google, in honor of mapping program Google Earth," according to an item on Popular Science's Web site.
"Fisher, who chairs the entomology department at the California Academy of Sciences, was impressed with the support he got from the Google Earth team when he was integrating the online warehouse of ant data, AntWeb, with the search functions of Google Earth. Now scientists can plot ant habitats in three dimensions or search for ant species by location," the article said. "For the record, P. google lives in Madagascar and feasts exclusively on spider eggs."
Elinor Mills covers Internet security and privacy. She joined CNET News in 2005 after working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Portugal and writing for The Industry Standard, the IDG News Service, and the Associated Press. E-mail Elinor.
