Researchers named the creature Jaggermeryx naida, which translates to "Jagger's water nymph," a reference to the creature's Jagger-like lips and its swamp habitat. The jawbone fossils of the creature suggest that, when it was alive some 19 million years ago, it was deer-sized and likely resembled a cross between a small hippo and a long-legged pig. The holes likely held nerve endings for the chin and lower lip that would have given the animal a set of super-sized and sensitive lips, the researchers said. Researchers named the animal after Mick Jagger for its highly sensitive snout and lips. Jaggermeryx is one of six species within the anthracotheres group discovered in the area. "Some of my colleagues suggested naming the new species after Hollywood star Angelina Jolie, because she also has famous lips," Miller said in a statement. The fossil's jaw, Wake Forest University paleoanthroplogist Ellen Miller said in a statement, had eight holes on either side.
– Congratulations, Mick Jagger: You and your kisser can now claim as your namesake a long-extinct swamp-dwelling creature LiveScience describes as something between "a small hippo and a long-legged pig" with really sensitive lips. Jaggermeryx naida, or "Jagger's water nymph," lived about 19 million years ago, adds the Washington Post, and its jawbone indicates it "probably had a highly innervated muzzle with mobile and tactile lips, thus the Jagger reference," says Gregg Gunnell, the Duke paleontologist and Jagger fanboy behind its discovery. Jaggermeryx naida was found in Egypt's Wadi Moghra desert, which apparently used to be considerably more verdant; the critter used its snout to forage for plants to eat. But Jagger wasn't a shoo-in, says study co-author and Wake Forest physical anthropologist Ellen Miller: "Some of my colleagues suggested naming the new species after Hollywood star Angelina Jolie, because she also has famous lips. But for me it had to be Mick." (Stephen Colbert has a beetle named after him.)