Rüdiger Bieler is not the first person who, while spending a day in the Florida sun, had a margarita come to mind. The biologist also is a Jimmy Buffett fan, and when he spotted an unfamiliar sea snail with the citrusy color of the tangy cocktail while scuba diving in the Florida Reef, he found a name for the species in "Margaritaville," CNN reports. The biologist reported his discovery, Cayo margarita, on Monday in the journal PeerJ. He and his team "really wanted to allude to the color of the drink and the fact that it lives in the Florida Keys," Bieler said.
The study describes the bright yellow specimen as a tiny worm snail, a kind of mollusk that sticks to hard surfaces in the coral reef and forms a tubular shell. It creates toxic mucus webs to catch plankton, algae, and detritus, per Live Science. The snail's key lime-ish color might be a defense to keep predators away, telegraphing the mucus that has distasteful metabolites, Bieler said. In choosing a name, he and his colleagues relied on what they know. "Our team was no stranger to the regional signature drink," Bieler said. "And of course, Jimmy Buffett's music." The singer-songwriter died Sept. 1. (More Jimmy Buffett stories.)
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