Obama gets greatest honour a bug lover could give him
It’s no Nobel Peace Prize, but Barack Obama has a new honour to brag about. Scientists have named a parasite after him — and there’s no worming out of it.
Baracktrema obamai is a tiny parasitic flatworm that lives in turtles’ blood. A new study officially names the 5cm, hair- thin creature after Obama.
Thomas Platt, the newly retired biology professor at Saint Mary’s College in Indiana who chose the name, says it’s an honour, not an insult. Really.
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 honour our President,” Platt said yesterday.
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.”
Platt says Baracktrema obamai “are phenomenally incredibly resilient organisms”. “I hold them in awe and with phenomenal respect,” Platt says.