The college sophomore has just won a contest sponsored by the National Geographic Society to help name a fish that experts say could be a new species.

Curiel beat out over 9,500 entries with her suggestion of "El Chilito."

"I saw that it was discovered off the coast of Chile, so I was thinking of something along the lines of Chile," she told National Geographic. And the suffix "-ita" means small or cute, so she came up with El Chilito. "Small and cute from Chile," she explained.

National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Enric Sala picked the winning name because "it is a very simpatico name that makes you want to hug the little fish." He also said that the name referred to the