President Obama can now claim -- in addition to Nobel Prize winner and leader of the free world -- the distinction of having a fish named after him.
Two scientists, Steve Layman of Geosyntec Consultants and Rick Mayden of Saint Louis University, have discovered five new fish species among populations previously thought to be Speckled Darters. Layman told BuzzFeed that the new Spangled Darter, named Etheostoma Obama and found in Tennessee, was named for the president "for his environmental leadership" and "more global vision" in approaching conservation.
Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Teddy Roosevelt served as inspiration for the other four new Darter species. Etheostoma TeddyRoosevelt, or the Highland Darter, was so named for the 26th president's "legacy of preserving vast areas for national monuments, parks, forests and refuges, setting a precedent that many other presidents would follow."
