The Grateful Dead legacy works in many ways. For one woman, The Dead inspired a career in paleontology, and, as a result, a newly-discovered species of extinct otter is now named Lontra weiri.

SFGate recently ran a feature highlighting Kari Prassack, a US National Park Service paleontologist who recognized that a mis-labeled jawbone fossil actually belonged to a unique species of otter. When other scientists confirmed the discovery, Prassack – a Deadhead – named the new species after Bob Weir. You can see the publication in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology here.

Prassack says following the Grateful Dead gave her the courage to follow a childhood dream of becoming a paleontologist. “I decided if I wanted to do something, I could go and do it,” she said in the article. Prassack saw over 100 Grateful Dead concerts between 1990 and 1995.

She also says that naming the 3.8 million year old otter after Weir was a way of showing appreciation. “It was a great opportunity to say ‘Thank you,’ for such a great experience,” she said.

Lontra weiri is one of many newly-discovered species to be named after a famous musician. A tarantula species was named after Johnny Cash earlier this year, for example. Still Deadheads can take solace in knowing Bob Weir has cemented his name in the science textbooks as well as the history ones.