The Indianapolis Children’s Museum was given a fossil of a dinosaur skull. After some checking around, museum researchers decided it was previously unknown. With the permission of J.K. Rowling (of Harry Potter fame,) the species was named Dracorex Hogwartsia.
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060522/LOCAL/605220436/1006/NEWS01
That’s draco for dragon, rex for king, and hogwartsia for the wizards’ academy.
Has any other species been named for a work of fiction?
I think there is a snake named after Monty Python.
I know there are others.
Brian
As Gary Larson proudly points out in one of his collections, thet named a species of insect after him. If you look cloely at the endpages, they’re made up of closely-spaced copies of a drawing of the bug.
Well, the only related tidbit of information I can remember off the top of my head (although I am not a biologist / naturalist / etc) is a tick named after Gary Larson. And in my search for a cite (it was mentioned in one of his collections, I think “Prehistory of the Far Side”), I came across a mention about a species of Ankylosaur being named after Michael Chrichton.
Aha, it was a louse, not a tick, which was throwing off my google search.
And after all that, on preview it turns out I was scooped by CalMeacham. ::shakes fist::
Isn’t there talk about naming an early hominid Hobbitius something or other?
The last thing I read about the prehistoric Hobbit, the experts were backpedaling, saying it was probably a genetic abberation within an established line of hominids.
Besides, the scientific name was given as Homo floriensis. “Hobbit” was just the common name.
But man, D. hogwartsia looks wicked!
I was thinking the same thing. Herbivore or not, that thing LOOKS like a dragon.
Now i want one as a pet! 
Not only that, but a word he made up in one of his cartoons is now used by paleontologists as the term for the arrangement of spikes on a stegosaur’s tail.
Terry Pratchett has two things named after him, both a species of prehistoric turtle (psephophorus terrypratchetti) and… er, something else I can’t remember.
Wow, that does look like many interpretations we’ve seen of dragons. Hmm …
Come to think of it, the Dandy Dinmont terrier is named for a fictional character. That’s not a separate species, though. For taxonomic reasons I don’t understand, the Great Dane, the chihuahua and all the other pet dog breeds are in the same species.
Well, they named a sandwich after Dagwood Bumstead…
Not exactly a species, but there’s a protein named after Sonic the Hedgehog (‘sonichedgehog’).
This link http://home.earthlink.net/~misaak/taxonomy/taxEtym.html
lists over 20 species named with reference to characters or items from The Lord of the Rings.
Examples:
Frodospira Wagner 1999 (Silurian gastropod) A small genus named after a certain hobbit. [Am. Malacological Bull. 15:1-31]
Galaxias gollumoides (fresh-water fish) Named after Gollum because it has large eyes and was found in a swamp.
Aletodon mellon (Van Valen, 1978) (Paleocene mammal) “mellon,” Elvish for “friend,” was the password into Moria.
etc. etc.
Harry Potter has some catching up to do.