A
wriggling amphibian which can only see the world in black and white and
which literally buries its head in the sand has been named after
President Donald Trump.Envirobuild, a sustainable housing company, bid
£19,800 at an auction for the right to name the worm-like Panamanian
amphibian Dermophis donaldtrumpi. The company says that it chose to name
the creature after Trump because of Donald Trump’s policies on climate
change and how both the amphibian and the president tend to see things
in black and white.
The
company wrote in a blog post:Caecilians is taken from the Latin Caecus
meaning “blind”, and have rudimentary eyes which can only detect light
or dark.Capable of seeing the world only in black and white, Donald
Trump has claimed that climate change is a hoax by the Chinese.The
amphibians live almost entirely underground, believed to have lost their
limbs at least 60 million years ago, as an adaptation to
burrowing.Burrowing its head underground helps Donald Trump when
avoiding scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change and also
appointed several energy lobbyists to the Environment Agency, where
their job is to regulate the energy industry.Envirobuild also drew
attention to a similarity between the creature and Donald Trump’s
approach to looking after their offspring.The company said:The dermophis
genus grows an extra layer of skin which their young use their teeth to
peel off and eat, a behaviour known as dermatrophy. As a method of
ensuring their children survive in life Donald Trump prefers granting
them high roles in the Oval Office.The name will still have to undergo
peer review by biologists, the company says – but several other animals
are already named after US presidents.The company added:As Demorphus
donaldtrumpi is an amphibian, it is particularly susceptible to the
impacts of climate change and is therefore in danger of becoming extinct
as a direct result of its namesake’s climate policies
