In Depth
What might have otherwise been an unassuming little lizard, has now become famous worldwide for being named after the 44th president of the United States, Barack Obama. The full name Obamadon which means ‘Obama tooth’ is a reference to Barack Obama’s smile.
Fossils of Obamadon were originally assigned to Leptochamops denticulatus, but a subsequent review of the fossils brought the realisation that two of the jaw fragments were from a unique and unknown genus. The teeth in the jaws are similar to those of other insectivorous lizards, and comparison to other genera has yielded a rough size estimate of about thirty centimetres long from nose to tail.
Excluding dinosaurs and pterosaurs, other reptiles associated with the same time and locations as Obamadon include the monitor lizard-like Palaeosaniwa and the snake Cerberophis.
Further Reading
- Mass extinction of lizards and snakes at the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary, Nicholas R. Longrich, Bhart-Anjan S. Bhullar & Jacques A. Gauthier - 2013. – Correction for ‘Mass extinction of lizards and snakes at the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary’, by Nicholas R. Longrich, Bhart-Anjan S. Bhullar, and Jacques A. Gauthier, which appeared in issue 52, December 26, 2012, of Proc Natl Acad Sci USA (109:21396–21401; first published December 10, 2012; 10.1073/pnas.1211526110). – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 110 (16). – Nicholas R. Longrich, Bhart-Anjan S. Bhullar & Jacques A. Gauthier – 2013.
