POP CULTURE RELEVANCE!

Actually, the bandicoot did have a brief moment of global recognition... sort of. When Sony launched the original PlayStation in 1994, it needed a character to rival Nintendo’s Mario and Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog. Developer Naughty Dog decided to choose an “obscure” animal on which to base a character, and thanks to a field guide to Tasmanian mammals, Crash Bandicoot was born. He was a huge success, selling millions. Recently, Crash achieved the dream of every fictional animal: in 2014 a fossilised tooth was assigned, literally, the species name This remains one of the few species whose binomial name is neither Greek nor Latin.