Because of its agility… Scientists give the name “Jackie Chan” to a family of lizards

Martial arts legend Jackie Chan may not be aware of this yet, but some of his biggest fans are a group of Indian herpetologists who are in love with him.

These scientists named a newly discovered type of gecko, the “Daytime Jackie’s Gecko”, and scientifically the “Nemaspis Jackie”, after Shane, Science News reported on Tuesday.

The lizard is one of 12 new species of gecko found in India and discovered by researchers on September 23. All 12 species are endemic to the Western Ghats, a mountain range rich in biodiversity that is threatened by deforestation and land-use change.

While working at a medium altitude in the Western Ghats, the team noticed a very graceful lizard. “Whenever we tried to catch it, it would shoot from one rock to another, crawling into the smallest cracks to escape from us,” says Saunak Pal of the Bombay Natural History Society in Mumbai. The researchers remembered Chan, and prompted them to name her a martial arts champion.

Co-author Mirza Zeeshan Mirza of the National Center for Biological Sciences in Bangalore says: “Naming a species in this way helps people connect with it especially when it is a less popular class of animals such as reptiles.”

Mirza has identified nearly 60 new species of animals so far, including the world-famous Salazar pit viper, named after Salazar Slytherin, a character in the Harry Potter series.