Handsome, long-legged and resourceful — that’s the Northern California spider A. barackobamai, one of nine different species of creatures whose names pay tribute to our outgoing 44th U.S. president.
“There’s no greater honor,” said Auburn University biologist Jason Bond, who named the presidential creature several years ago after spider-collecting trips in Mendocino, Napa, Shasta, Sutter and Tehama counties.
President Barack Obama has more creatures named after him — from an extinct lizard to an Amazonian bird — than any of his predecessors, according to a recent issue of the journal Science.
Theodore Roosevelt comes in a close second, with seven.
Obama “has been a great president,” said spider expert Bond, professor and chair of Auburn’s Department of Biological Sciences, who has also honored his wife, Kristen, and daughter Elisabeth with arachnid names. “The poise, elegance and integrity with which he conducted himself over the past eight years — it was amazing.”
Plenty of streets, buildings and parks are named after Obama — among them, Obama Way in the Monterey County town of Seaside and the Oakland-based school Barack Obama Academy.
“But those are ephemeral. Buildings get torn down. Streets go away,” said Bond, who also directs the Auburn University Museum of Natural History.
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In contrast, taxonomy — the modern system of naming organisms, formalized by Carl Linnaeus in the mid-1700s — endures. “As long as humans are around doing biology, those names will persist.”
Scientists who can prove they discovered a unique species have the right to name it.
Obama is also a fish: Etheostoma obama, the spangled darter, a perchlike fish resplendent in iridescent blue and bright orange. “The species epithet … honors President Barack Obama and his environmental leadership and commitment during challenging economic times in the areas of clean energy, energy efficiency, environmental protection and humanitarian efforts,” wrote its discoverers, Steve Layman and Richard Mayden, in the 2012 Bulletin of the Alabama Museum of Natural History.
Even a blood-sucking parasite, Baracktrema obamai, is named after the president. It’s a compliment, asserted biologist Thomas Platt of Saint Mary’s College in Indiana. “It’s long. It’s thin. And it’s cool as hell,” he told The Associated Press. The flatworms, which live inside turtles “are phenomenally incredibly resilient organisms. … I hold them in awe and with phenomenal respect.”
The journal Science described these six other species that will forever carry the name of Obama.
- Caloplaca obamae, a species of orange-red lichen that grows on one of California’s Channel Islands, to honor the president’s support of science and science education.
- Obamadon gracilis, an extinct lizard found fossilized in Hell Creek, Montana. Paleontologists said the lizard’s impressive teeth reminded them of the president’s impeccable smile.
- Paragordius obamai, a hairworm that lives inside the stomachs of African crickets. Obama’s father and step-grandmother lived in a Kenyan town just 11 miles away from the parasitic discovery.
- Nystalus obamai, the western striolated puffbird, which lives in the Amazon rainforest — precisely the kind of fragile environment that could be helped by Obama’s commitment to green technologies, said discoverers.
- Teleogramma obamaorum, a species of an African fish called cichlids. It is plural, honoring both Barack and Michelle for advancing science education and conservation in Africa.
- Tosanoides obama, the coral reef basslet, is the only fish to live exclusively in Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument — a protected reserve that the president expanded last August.
The presidential spider Aptostichus barackobamai is one of 41 species of so-called trapdoor spiders, named for their ambitious construction of 8-inch-deep burrows, lined with silk and concealed by a wafer-thin D-shaped hinged lid. Reddish-brown in color, it is distinguished from other species by its unique arrangement of spines on its first pair of walking legs.
It’s harmless and small — rarely larger than the nail on your thumb — and was originally thought to be rare. But collecting efforts in recent years show its range is wider than once thought, and in the autumn, males might be seen marching through redwoods and coastal scrub habitats, in search of a mate.
Bond had anticipated naming his next new species for Hillary Clinton, as the first woman president. He hasn’t completely ruled out honoring Clinton for her historic nomination and achievements as secretary of state.
For now, the tribute of a new name awaits some unsuspecting spider — one that Bond recently discovered in the Moss Landing area — that is currently anonymous.
“Always open to suggestions!” Bond said.
