Scientists have named a recently-discovered ancient lizard Obamadon gracilis after the 44th president, the Boston Globe reports.
Yale and Harvard scientists discovered several species of lizards during a project to re-examine fossil collections. Top Yale paleontologist Nicholas Longrich said that a small, slender-jawed lizard that went extinct 65 million years ago along with the dinosaurs seemed like the right fit to take the President’s name.
“I was seriously thinking, if the election had gone the other way, I would have yanked it,” Longrich said. “It might have seemed like we were mocking it, naming a lizard that goes extinct after that, seemed kind of cruel.”
Longrich and his colleagues revealed the lizard’s name in a paper published Monday.
(Photo: Yale)