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Blind worm-like creature that buries its head in sand named after Donald Trump

Picture:
Picture:
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images and EnviroBuild

Donald Trump has inspired scientists and biologists alike, who have taken to naming newly discovered animal species after the controversial US president.

First, it was the moth with blonde hair and small genitals, which evolutionary biologist Vazrick Nazari called Neopalpa donaldtrumpi.

Now, we have an amphibian, discovered in Panama.

It is small, legless and blind. It also buries its head in the sands under the water.

EnviroBuild, a sustainable building materials company, bought the naming rights for the new snake-like critter for a whopping $25,000 (£19,800) at an auction.

And then they named it Dermophis donaldtrumpi.

Well, that’s one way to spend a lot of money (the auction was conducted to help with conservation efforts).

The company said it decided on the name in an effort to raise awareness about global warming - a topic the US president often downplays or denies the existence of.

EnviroBuild co-founder Aidan Bell said in a statement:

Dermophis donaldtrumpi 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.

The creature is a type of caecilian, which is the name of a group of tropical amphibians that look like large worms or snakes.

Burrowing [his] head underground helps Donald Trump when avoiding scientific consensus on anthropomorphic climate change.

The organisation added in a blog post:

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.

Donald Trump has consistently cast doubt on the validity of climate change arguments made by scientists, and in an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes in October said: ‘I don’t know that it’s manmade.’

I’m not denying climate change but [temperatures] could very well go back.

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