From prehistoric reptiles to rat-eating plants and pygmy locusts preserved in amber, perhaps no other person has been honoured taxonomically more often than Sir David Attenborough. So to mark the birthday of the world's favourite naturalist and documentarian, here's a list of amazing species that carry Attenborough-inspired names. Image: Chris Harries

Since it was his childhood fossil-hunting trips that ignited some of his passion for the natural world (and let's not forget that his brother went on to bring a few dinosaurs back to life), it's only fitting that a prehistoric creature bears Sir David's name. The marine reptile Attenborosaurus conybeari, a type of plesiosaur, was an aquatic carnivore that lived during the early Jurassic period. Image: Nobu Tamura, Wikimedia Commons

The long-necked plesiosaur is not the only prehistoric animal with an Attenborough-inspired name. Materpiscis attenboroughi – meaning "mother fish" – got its name after scientists unearthed a 380-million-year-old fossil (complete with embryo and umbilical cord!) at the famous Gogo fossil sites in Western Australia. The discovery was significant because it provided scientists with the oldest evidence of an animal giving live birth. The fish was named in Attenborough's honour because his 1979 series Life on Earth first drew attention to the significance of the Gogo sites.

The wingless beetle Trigonopterus attenboroughi was one of 98 new species discovered last year in a bumper beetle find on the Indonesian islands of Java, Bali and Lombok. Image: Alexander Riedel

Why settle for a species when you can have an entire genus of plants named after you? The Sirdavidia flowering plants were identified by scientists in the dense rainforests of Gabon, and named to honour Attenborough's influence on the lives of the scientists who made the discovery. Image: Thomas Couvreur

The only known specimen of the ghost shrimp Ctenocheloides attenboroughi was found wedged in a piece of rubble dug up in a mangrove-fringed bay in Madagascar in 2008. Image: Arthur Anker

Thanks to his lifelong interest in amber and its preservation properties, Sir David was honoured taxonomically once again in 2014, when researchers discovered a new species of pygmy locust hiding within a massive collection of 20-million-year-old amber. The ancient grasshopper, only about the size of a rose thorn, would have fed on moss, algae and fungi. Image: Heads & Thomas/ZooKeys

Also known as Attenborough’s goblin spider, the tiny Prethopalpus attenboroughi (just 1.04mm in length) was discovered in 2012. It's found only on Horn Island off northern Queensland.

If you're going to have a plant named after you, it would be hard to find one cooler than this one. One of the world's largest pitcher plants, Nepenthes attenboroughii was discovered by botanists on the slopes of Mount Victoria in the Philippines back in 2009. The carnivorous plant's sweet nectar lures prey as large as rats to its deadly pitcher trap. Image: Dr. Alastair Robinson 

He's had species named after him all over the globe, but until earlier this year, there were no living species in his native United Kingdom bearing an Attenborough-inspired name. That all changed when a new species of wildflower, a member of the daisy family, was given the name Hieracium attenboroughianum, or Attenborough’s hawkweed, earlier this year. Image: Tim Rich