Scientists discovered new species of ancient sea creature and named it after President Obama

[Judi Lynn]

Mike Wehner @MikeWehner
June 20th, 2018 at 1:14 PM

In many ways, the Earth was a much different place 580 million years ago. The landscape wasn’t exactly bustling. Life had existed on the planet for a few billion years already, but you wouldn’t have recognized most of it, and the first complex animals were just starting to travel down the various evolutionary paths that eventually led us to where we are today. Researchers just announced the discovery of a pair of very peculiar creatures that lived during that very important era, and they’ve been named after some very special folks.

The discoveries, which are detailed in papers published in the Australian Journal of Earth Sciences, are helping to shape our understanding of how life evolved from single-celled organisms and bacteria to modern animals.

he two new species, which were discovered by a research team led by Mary Droser of the University of California – Riverside, were flat, disc-shaped creatures that lived on the shallow ocean floor. They were very small, only topping out at around two centimeters in diameter, and they don’t appear to have been very mobile, but they were pioneers of the day.

The scientists chose to name the unique animals after President Barack Obama and Sir David Attenborough, thanks to their contributions to science:

More:
http://bgr.com/2018/06/20/obama-fossil-paleontology-ancient-sea-creature/

[VMA131Marine]

1. If Trump ever gets a species named after him ...

it will be some kind of parasite.

[greyl]

2. "Obamus coronatus", from the link. nt

[Rhiannon12866]

3. This has made it to Wikipedia along with an artist's rendering:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obamus

The generic epithet honors President Obama, partly in reference to his love and patronage of the sciences, and allegedly because the fossil organisms resemble his ear. The specific epithet, "coronatus," meaning "wreath," refers to the torus or ring-shape of the fossils.