Obamadon: Newly Discovered Prehistoric Lizard Named After President Obama
Posted on December 12, 2012
Yale and Harvard scientists have named a newly discovered prehistoric lizard Obamadon gracilis after President Obama. The lizard is estimated to have been under one foot long. It ate insects and had tall, slender teeth. The researchers say no one should impute any political significance to the naming of the lizard after the president.
The extinct lizard was named in part of a research study that found the same asteroid collision thought to have killed the dinosaurs also caused extreme devastation among snake and lizard species. The study was published here in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Nicholas R. Longrich, a postdoctoral associate with Yale's Department of Geology and Geophysics and lead author of the study, said in a release, "The asteroid event is typically thought of as affecting the dinosaurs primarily. But it basically cut this broad swath across the entire ecosystem, taking out everything. Snakes and lizards were hit extremely hard."
The researchers say that as many as 83% of all snake and lizard species died off after the asteroid struck the earth 65.5 million years ago, on the edge of the Yucatan Peninsula. They say there were numerous reptile species living in the last days of the dinosaurs.
Longrich says, "Lizards and snakes rivaled the dinosaurs in terms of diversity, making it just as much an 'Age of Lizards' as an 'Age of Dinosaurs."