小翠家族的新成员：奥巴马# Animals - 动物园
I*i
1 楼
呵呵，其实是以奥巴马命名的小翠：Obamadon
http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/10/15823225-ancient-
Ancient lizard that died out with the dinosaurs named after Obama
（In this artist's conception, the carnivorous lizard Palaeosaniwa stalks a
pair of hatchling Edmontosaurus dinosaurs as the snake Cerberophis looks on
from above, and the lizard Obamadon watches from below. Meanwhile, in the
background, a Tyrannosaurus rex encounters a Triceratops troop while an
asteroid streaks down to Earth.）
The mass extinction that killed off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago also
did in lots of lizards — including a newly identified creature that's been
named Obamadon gracilis in honor of President Barack Obama.
Obama already has a type of fish (Ethiostoma obama) and lichen (Caloplaca
obamae) named after him, and now the recently re-elected leader of the free
world can add a foot-long, slender-toothed casualty of the Cretaceous-
Tertiary extinction to the list.
Yale paleontologist Nicholas Longrich, the lead author of a paper announcing
the find in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, told me
that the name arose from a conversation he had with a friend in late 2008,
when folks were wondering how Obama's election would change the political
scene.
"I said, yeah, we should name a dinosaur after him," Longrich said. "It was
sort of a smart-ass comment."
But the idea stuck. After all, this is the guy who named a different fossil
"Mojoceratops."
"It was catchy, and it seemed like a fun thing to do," he said.
There's a serious point behind the paper, of course: Longrich and his
colleagues analyzed at fossils representing 30 different types of snakes and
lizards, previously collected from locales in western North America ranging
from New Mexico to Alberta. Nine of the species, including Obamadon, were
previously unrecognized.
"Lizards and snakes rivaled the dinosaurs in terms of diversity, making it
just as much an 'Age of Lizards' as an 'Age of Dinosaurs,'" Longrich said in
a Yale news release.
Previous studies had suggested that some snake and lizard species went
extinct, along with the dinosaurs and many types of mammals, birds, insects
and plants. The extinction was presumably due to a catastrophic asteroid
strike on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.
The new survey suggests that snakes and lizards were hit much harder than
previously thought. Longrich and his colleagues estimate that up to 83
percent of all snake and lizard species were killed off. The bigger the
creature, the more likely it was to become extinct: The researchers
concluded that no species weighing more than a pound survived.
Obamadon was part of a group of creatures known as polyglyphanodonts, which
accounted for up to 40 percent of the lizards living in North America before
the extinction. Obama's namesake was identified on the basis of jaw fossils
from Montana's Hell Creek Formation, with "tall, slender teeth with large
central cusps separated from small accessory cusps by lingual grooves."
The lizard was less than a foot long and probably caught insects in its
teeth, Longrich said.
The discovery of Obamadon just goes to show how new discoveries can come
from old specimens — including fossils that were collected years ago, by
paleontologists who were focusing dinosaurs or early mammals rather than
snakes or lizards. "There hasn't been a heck of a lot of interest in these
specimens," Longrich said. "Here we have all this data that's there, waiting
to be studied."
Two of the newly recognized fossil species don't yet have scientific names,
but when it comes time for the naming, rest assured that Longrich won't come
up with anything too wild and crazy.
"We decided not to do the Hitlerosaurus," he said.
http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/10/15823225-ancient-
Ancient lizard that died out with the dinosaurs named after Obama
（In this artist's conception, the carnivorous lizard Palaeosaniwa stalks a
pair of hatchling Edmontosaurus dinosaurs as the snake Cerberophis looks on
from above, and the lizard Obamadon watches from below. Meanwhile, in the
background, a Tyrannosaurus rex encounters a Triceratops troop while an
asteroid streaks down to Earth.）
The mass extinction that killed off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago also
did in lots of lizards — including a newly identified creature that's been
named Obamadon gracilis in honor of President Barack Obama.
Obama already has a type of fish (Ethiostoma obama) and lichen (Caloplaca
obamae) named after him, and now the recently re-elected leader of the free
world can add a foot-long, slender-toothed casualty of the Cretaceous-
Tertiary extinction to the list.
Yale paleontologist Nicholas Longrich, the lead author of a paper announcing
the find in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, told me
that the name arose from a conversation he had with a friend in late 2008,
when folks were wondering how Obama's election would change the political
scene.
"I said, yeah, we should name a dinosaur after him," Longrich said. "It was
sort of a smart-ass comment."
But the idea stuck. After all, this is the guy who named a different fossil
"Mojoceratops."
"It was catchy, and it seemed like a fun thing to do," he said.
There's a serious point behind the paper, of course: Longrich and his
colleagues analyzed at fossils representing 30 different types of snakes and
lizards, previously collected from locales in western North America ranging
from New Mexico to Alberta. Nine of the species, including Obamadon, were
previously unrecognized.
"Lizards and snakes rivaled the dinosaurs in terms of diversity, making it
just as much an 'Age of Lizards' as an 'Age of Dinosaurs,'" Longrich said in
a Yale news release.
Previous studies had suggested that some snake and lizard species went
extinct, along with the dinosaurs and many types of mammals, birds, insects
and plants. The extinction was presumably due to a catastrophic asteroid
strike on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.
The new survey suggests that snakes and lizards were hit much harder than
previously thought. Longrich and his colleagues estimate that up to 83
percent of all snake and lizard species were killed off. The bigger the
creature, the more likely it was to become extinct: The researchers
concluded that no species weighing more than a pound survived.
Obamadon was part of a group of creatures known as polyglyphanodonts, which
accounted for up to 40 percent of the lizards living in North America before
the extinction. Obama's namesake was identified on the basis of jaw fossils
from Montana's Hell Creek Formation, with "tall, slender teeth with large
central cusps separated from small accessory cusps by lingual grooves."
The lizard was less than a foot long and probably caught insects in its
teeth, Longrich said.
The discovery of Obamadon just goes to show how new discoveries can come
from old specimens — including fossils that were collected years ago, by
paleontologists who were focusing dinosaurs or early mammals rather than
snakes or lizards. "There hasn't been a heck of a lot of interest in these
specimens," Longrich said. "Here we have all this data that's there, waiting
to be studied."
Two of the newly recognized fossil species don't yet have scientific names,
but when it comes time for the naming, rest assured that Longrich won't come
up with anything too wild and crazy.
"We decided not to do the Hitlerosaurus," he said.
