Researchers Name Extinct Lizard After Barack Obama

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President Barack Obama, who recently defeated Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, can add another item to his list of honors and awards: Yale and Harvard researchers have named an ancient lizard after the commander-in-chief.

According to a YaleNEWS release, a lot of lizards, including a newly discovered one namedObamadon gracilis, were killed off with the dinosaurs more than 65 million years ago. This lizard and many other snake and lizard species were killed off by an asteroid collision that is also thought to have led to the demise of dinosaurs.

"The asteroid event is typically thought of as affecting the dinosaurs primarily," said lead author Nicholas R. Longrich, a postdoctoral associate with Yale's Department of Geology and Geophysics, in a statement. "But it basically cut this broad swath across the entire ecosystem, taking out everything. Snakes and lizards were hit extremely hard."