Once you've taken our metal band or microbe quiz, check here to find out which will cause festering skin lesions and which are bacteria.
Take note: Some of these videos or the lyrics of the songs may be NSFW.
1. Moraxella lacunata — This bacteria causes corneal infections and conjunctivitis.
2. Mortuus Caelum — Greek metalheads.
3. Acidianus — This is a genus of bacteria, but imagine if it was a death metal band, and what their album covers would look like.
4. Cirith Ungol — True fact: 83 percent of all metal band names are Tolkien references.
5. Paramaecium — Sure, this is a microbe, but it's also a Christian metal band. Give yourself a point either way. Take a bonus point if you make it to the end of the song.
6. Metalium — I just want to point out the album title here. Demons of Insanity: Chapter Five. These guys wrote four chapters about the Demons of Insanity and still felt they had more to say on the subject.
7. Metallosphaera — This bacteria not only would make an excellent band name, it comes with its own album title. One species of metallosphaera thrives in hot, acidic conditions, making it a thermoacidophile.
8. Schizomycetes — This is a defunct taxonomic class that was made up of plantlike microbes.
9. Serratia — This nasty pathogen causes skin, urinary tract and wound site infections in hospitals.
10. Xenophilus — This microbe can cause peritonitis and is also the name of a Greek philosopher and (nearly) Luna Lovegood's dad. It's also notoriously camera shy.
11. Anthrax — I could talk about this deadly pathogen, but instead let's pump our fists and watch the video for "Madhouse." You get a point no matter what you answered.
12. Circle of Dead Children — As much as I want to live in a world where there's a microbe called "Circle of Dead Children," this is not the case.
13. Nachtmystium — Use the comments to debate whether this is death metal, black metal, thrash metal, grindcore, sludge metal, Norwegian metal, Viking metal, speed metal, doom metal, prog metal, or poser metal. It's important.
14. Toxothrix — This microbe has the best metal band name, especially because it's Russian (it was found in an iron-rich spring near Kiev).
15. Thermovorax — This strain of bacteria is big in Japan.
16. Amon Amarth — All of the good Lord of the Rings place names are taken now. Unless you want to go with Buckleberry Ferry.
17. Thergothon — Who rides astral wings? Who doesn't?
18. Eperythrozoon — This bacteria is interesting in that it doesn't have a cell wall, making it impervious to some antibiotics. It had a star turn in a season four episode of House.
19. Chromatium minus — Causes disease in fish, especially in polluted waters.
20. Agathodaimon — Romanian metal!
Rate yourself on the metal-o-meter by checking the number you got correct.
2-5: Big Engelbert Humperdinck fan?
6-10: Van Halen is about as heavy as it gets for you. On the bright side, you seem adept at avoiding microbial infections.
11-15: You probably own a Flying V, and you're aware that it has its own ecosystem.
16-22: You've clearly spent your time in quarantine listening to the most obscure, brutal metal known to humanity. Thumbs up!