For just $2,500 USD, you could name a slug after me

Slimeballicus Tommegginsoni

Or, just name a species after yourself. It's an offer by Discover Life in America, who are short on both funds and names for the hundreds of new species (mostly tiny invertebrates)  discovered in recent years at Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee.

USA Today reports that donations to the biodiversity conservation and taxonomy and organization in 2009 — the most recent year for which statistics are available — were $91,868, down from $244,000 the year before.

And, while I'm not big on corporate branding of public institutions like elementary schools, perhaps Pepsi or Coke would like to associate their brand with something small, icky and endangered... okay, scratch that.

This is a great cause, however, and would be a wonderful opportunity for fundraising organizations to adopt a part of the biodiversity on which our planet depends... and maybe have some fun doing it.