11 different participants independently suggested the name 'populi' during the online naming effort for the chiton.
Notes on verification
The figure of 11 independent suggestions is consistently reported across many outlets, but all appear to trace back to a single Senckenberg/Pensoft press release rather than independently verified counts, so corroboration is broad but not truly independent.
Sources
- This weird deep-sea creature was named by thousands of people online | ScienceDaily (sciencedaily.com)
- https://blog.pensoft.net/2026/02/06/the-internet-names-a-new-deep-sea-species-senckenberg-researchers-select-a-scientific-name-from-over-8000-suggestions/ (blog.pensoft.net)
- https://www.discovermagazine.com/8-000-suggestions-later-a-newly-discovered-deep-sea-species-gets-its-name-48657 (discovermagazine.com)
- https://a-z-animals.com/articles/this-iron-toothed-sea-creature-found-18000-feet-down-has-a-crowdsourced-name/ (a-z-animals.com)
- https://scitechdaily.com/the-internet-just-named-a-brand-new-deep-sea-creature-found-nearly-3-miles-deep/ (scitechdaily.com)
- https://www.earth.com/animals/scientists-poll-the-internet-to-name-a-strange-new-deep-sea-creature-ferreiraella-populi/ (earth.com)