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Platt, who discovered and named the flatworm to crown his career before retiring, has more than 30 new species to his credit. In the past, he’s named them after his father-in-law, his doctorate adviser “and other people I have a great deal of respect for. This is clearly something in my small way done to honor our president,” Platt said Thursday.
Platt, who is a distant relative of the president, says people pay thousands of dollars for the privilege of having a species named after them.
Parasites, which live in and get nutrients from host animals, get a bad rap. Platt says this one reminds him of the president: “It’s long. It’s thin. And it’s cool as hell.”
Scientists have also named a fish (Etheostoma obama), a trapdoor spider (Aptostichus barackobamai), a lichen species (Caloplaca obamae) and an extinct insect-eating lizard (Obamadon gracilis) after the current commander in chief.
Platt explained why it's so tempting to enshrine Obama's name in the lexicon of living things.
"It is a unique component of the diversity of life on this planet," he said. "Anyone should consider it an honor."
With just a few days until the White House gets rebranded with a big fat gold-plated “TRUMP” logo, "the Donald" has received the honor of having a new species of moth officially named after him: Neopalpa donaldtrumpi.
Totally unrelated to the moths’ namesake, the new species has a strange blonde thing on its head and small genitals.
The golden-haired species has been described this week in the online journal ZooKeys. With a wingspan of just 7-12 millimeters, these moths can be found around the future location of the Great-Wall-Of-Trump, Arizona, California, and Mexico’s Baja California.
Evolutionary biologist Dr Vazrick Nazari discovered the new species and named it in honor of the soon-to-be president. After sifting through a collection of moths from the genus Neopalpa, he noticed that a few specimens didn't match the criteria for previously known species. For one, the study notes it has “genitalia comparatively smaller” than its closest relative N. neonata. Using DNA barcoding analysis and catalogs from various natural history institutions, Nazari showed that it was indeed a separate unrecognized specie
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https://apnews.com/da385c1815934b909ba681c7b42773dc And: latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-obama-parasitic-worm-20160908-snap-story.html Apparently our current president has inspired scientists to name a species after him as well: iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/blondehaired-moth-with-small-genitals-named-after-donald-trump/
Imagine someone detected a virus. You want to virus to be named after you or the cure?
"It is just like Obama"...what nonsense. Sorry, my I'm not buying. This guy is not respecting Obama.